The Australian Democrats could again achieve the electoral successes of their late-1990s high-watermark, according to their national president.

The question is: do they want to?

Darren Churchill was in a reflective mood this morning after the party founded by disgruntled Liberal wet Don Chipp in 1977 as a centrist alternative was yesterday deregistered by the Australian Electoral Commission.

The party reached its electoral zenith under Cheryl Kernot and later – after her defection to Labor – Meg Lees.

“The party was at an all-time high … We had nine senators and were almost as influential as the Opposition in many respects,” Churchill recalled.

“Do I envisage us getting back to that point? It’s taken other parties 20-odd years to build to that point,” he said, in a pointed dig at the Greens, who have firmly supplanted the Democrats as the third force in Australian politics.

“So it will take some time to build to that point (but) it’s not out of the question that we can do that,” he said.

But if there’s a way, is there a will to once again be a mainstream alternative?

“I think we have to be a little bit more boutique-ish in our approach to things,” said Churchill.

“Trying to be a broad party in the way we may have been in the late ‘90s and early 21^st century is probably not a realistic option.”

But for now, the Democrats are not a party at all.

The end came quietly, without fanfare, late yesterday with a two line addendum posted on the electoral commission’s website:

“The Australian Democrats was registered on 5 July 1984 and deregistered on 16 April 2015.

Reason: s.137(6) – failure to demonstrate requisite 500 members to maintain registration.”

Former high-flying members of the Australian Democrats expressed sadness – but no surprise – at the demise of a party steeped in South Australian political history.

Chipp aside, this state was in many ways the cradle of the Democrats, its history steeped in the Liberal Movement that has so divided the state Liberal Party.

It gained its first parliamentary seat when Robin Millhouse joined the party. Its first federal MP, South Australian Janine Haines, was also the first female federal parliamentary leader of an Australian political party.

The party garnered an incredible 16.7 per cent of the vote in the 1997 state election, and the following year John Schumann almost pinched Alexander Downer’s prized safe federal seat of Mayo.

Kate Reynolds, who served three years in the state’s Upper House after replacing long-serving Mike Elliott, said it was “just deeply, deeply sad that there isn’t another party that has been able to step in and take the space the Democrats occupied, which is that broad-based progressive centrist party”.

She told InDaily the party had long since been “almost forgotten” by the voting public, but “even if the death has only now been officially announced … it’s still a really sad day”.

Reynolds — who cut a public figure formidable enough that the then-Rann Labor Government sought unsuccessfully to court her — let her own membership lapse when she left parliament at the 2006 election.

“Oh God, no!” she replied when asked if she was still involved with the party.

“I could read the writing on the wall back in ’06; it was absolutely clear that the party didn’t have any substantial future,” she said.

“It lacked direction, there was a lack of leadership at the parliamentary level, most of the people involved for 20 years were exhausted and had moved on … It’s fair to say their passion for good politics and good governance was still there, but they recognised the Australian Democrats was not a party in which they could do anything constructive with their passion.”

She says it’s a shame to simply remember the federal successes and failures, since “the state party here in SA was doing fabulous work as well”.

“I joined the party because of what the state MPs were doing; they were working their butts off and really making a difference …Keeping the bastards honest in SA, and making a difference as well.”

Former state and (briefly) national president Richard Pascoe says the party brought about its own demise.

“It was always coming,” he said.

“This was a party that wasn’t ready to change.”

Pascoe dramatically quit in 2006 after falling out with then-leader Sandra Kanck, who had publicly insisted that ecstasy was “not a dangerous drug”.

He is better known these days under the moniker “Adelaide Tech Guy” – an IT specialist with a high media profile.

“I don’t normally mention the war any more,” he said when contacted by InDaily.

“I got recruited into the party to try to change it (but) they just wanted to go down same old track,” he reflected.

“A lot of them loathe publicity and that’s one thing I could never understand …They didn’t know why people voted for them.”

He said the Democrats had made a choice “between trying to sit as a centre party – and that’s what I envision them being” and pushing further and further hard left.

“Once you start going down that path, there’s no money coming in and it’s very hard to gain that traction that’s needed to build,” he said.

“What do they stand for today? Nobody would have a clue. It’s very sad when you look back at (the likes of) Natasha Stott Despoja.”

Kanck was later almost ousted in a factional spat over her prominent role in the Sustainable Population Australia movement, a ruction Churchill blames on “a handful of rogue members who caused a disruption”.

“Sandra Kanck is a very loyal and committed member of the Australian Democrats (and) sustainable population is a very important issue,” he said.

The Democrats have 28 days to appeal the electoral commission’s determination, and intend to do so.

“We believe our membership list is sufficient to get us through,” he said.

“People often resign or not renew and don’t tell us.”