The Centre Democrats (Dutch: Centrum Democraten, CD) was a political party in the Netherlands. Founded in 1984 by members who split out from the far-right Centre Party (CP), the Centre Democrats was joined one month later by the only CP Member of Parliament—Hans Janmaat. Janmaat went on to become the leader of the party, which subsequently became strongly centered on his person. The newly formed Centre Democrats represented the more moderate faction of the Centre Party, but still espoused an anti-immigration and nationalist ideology. Their claims of standing in the centre of the political landscape have thus been disputed by political scientists.

The Centre Democrats did not gain enough votes for parliamentary representation in the 1986 general election, but Janmaat won back his seat after the following election in 1989. In 1994 he was joined by two additional representatives won by the party. The CD was subject to a cordon sanitaire by the other parties in Parliament, although some parties sought to confront it following its 1994 success. The CD failed to win any seats in the 1998 election, and it fell into disarray until it was finally dissolved in 2002.

The Centre Democrats was founded on 7 November 1984 by a few low-key members who broke away from the Centre Party (CP). On 5 December, the only Member of Parliament for the Centre Party, Hans Janmaat, changed party to the Centre Democrats and became its seventh member. Janmaat believed that by steering a more moderate course, the Centre Party would attract more voters at the polls, but was expelled by the party's hardliners. In an attempt to appear more mainstream than the Centre Party, the new Centre Democrats' slogans were more moderate and less explicit. As opposed to the Centre Party's Eigen volk eerst ("Our People First"), the Centre Democrats' manifesto used the Dutch proverb Oost West Thuis Best ("There's No Place Like Home"). After Janmaat joined the Centre Democrats, the party became known as "his" party. Despite widespread media coverage generated by Janmaat's reputation, party membership remained small in the first few years.

During its early years, the Centre Democrats received extensive media attention on two occasions. The first occurred when the Centre Democrats and Centre Party met on 29 March 1986 in Kedichem. A group of anti-fascist activists believed that the two parties were planning to merge, and firebombed the hotel where the meeting was held. The venue was severely damaged, Janmaat narrowly escaped death and the party secretary Wil Schuurman had one leg amputated after jumping from a window to escape the conflagration.

Janmaat's attempt to be reinstated as a teacher at his old school following his failed re-election to parliament led to the second media frenzy. Although he was legally permitted to go back to his job, the protests of some students and parents due to his reputation as a "racist", led him to be bought off by the court from pursuing a return to his old job. Unable to go back to his former job, Janmaat returned to politics. Taking advantage of Janmaat's profile, the Centre Democrats contested the 1986 general election under the name Lijst Janmaat/Centrumdemocraten, but gained just 0.1% of the vote and no parliamentary seat. The Centre Democrats failed in its attempt to win votes from the Centre Party, which gained 0.4% of the vote but also did not win a seat.

Following the 1986 election, the Centre Democrats worked on improving both its image and its grassroots support. The strategy paid off with Janmaat winning a seat in the House of Representatives in the 1989 general election. By contesting the election in all nineteen constituencies, the party won the right to state-sponsored television and radio time but still had no more than 300 registered members. In the 1990 local elections the Centre Democrats won eleven seats, then, in the 1991 provincial elections, three seats in the provincial parliament.

Electoral success overtook the party and Janmaat began to make controversial statements in the media. Based on his conviction that high office should be restricted to third-generation Dutch nationals, he suggested that several cabinet ministers, including Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch-Ballin who was of Jewish descent, and Agriculture State Secretary Dzsingisz Gabor who was of Hungarian descent, should be removed from the Dutch leadership. This marked the start of prosecutions of Centre Democrats party members on charges of racism, as well as the decision by the other parties in Parliament and government to place a cordon sanitaire around the party.

The cordon sanitaire turned out to be counterproductive with the Centre Democrats winning 77 seats in the 1994 local elections and gaining representation in almost every city where it fielded a candidate. Large cities were strongholds of the party, winning more than 10% of the vote in Rotterdam. It became the fifth largest Dutch political party. After the elections, however, scandal loomed over the Centre Democrats, largely because of its weak organization and lack of active party members. Many of its previously won local seats became vacant after a while, as elected representatives failed to take them up, joined or founded other parties, left the party or left politics altogether. Before the 1994 general election opinion polls predicted that the party could win more than five seats in the House of Representatives. However, media reports claiming that some newly elected local members had extremist pasts damaged the Centre Democrats' prospects. A secret recording broadcast on national television one week before the election showed an Amsterdam council member bragging about having set immigrant centers on fire in the early 1980s. In the election that followed, the Centre Democrats won 2.5% of the vote and three seats in the House of Representatives (Janmaat was joined by Wil Schuurman and Cor Zonneveld), well below earlier expectations. Janmaat claimed that the relatively poor result was a result of an anti-CD campaign in the media. Due to its growth, and questions arising amongst the other parties over the development of a multicultural society, political opponents began to confront the Centre Democrats directly rather than maintain a strict cordon sanitaire around it.