The Communist Party of the Netherlands dissolved itself Saturday after spending most of its 73 years on the fringe of Dutch politics.

Delegates at a conference in Amersfoort, 25 miles east of Amsterdam, overwhelmingly backed a proposal to dismantle the party.The CPN had become little more than a name since it merged in 1989 with three other small left-wing parties to form the Green Left alliance.

In elections three years earlier the CPN failed to win a single seat in parliament for the first time since it was founded in 1918.

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Support for the Communists peaked in 1946 when they won over 10 percent of the vote for resisting the Nazi occupation in World War II.

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