Aliança Democrática
The Aliança Democrática (AD), Portuguese for Democratic Alliance , was a center-right political alliance in Portugal. The Aliança Democrática consisted of the Partido Social Democrata (PPD / PSD), Centro Democrático e Social (CDS) and Partido Popular Monárquico (PPM). The party alliance is formed over and over again, depending on the political situation. It first existed between 1979 and 1983.
history
1979-1983
The alliance of the three parties was formed for the first time for the 1979 parliamentary elections in order to have better opportunities than the traditionally strong left parties in Portugal. Led by the charismatic Social Democrat Francisco Sá Carneiro , the electoral alliance won the early parliamentary elections in 1979 with an absolute majority of 45.26 percent (128 out of 250 MPs).
In the regular parliamentary elections in 1980 , the AD was able to defend its absolute majority and increase it to a total of 47.59 percent (134 of 250 MPs). Based on this election result, the government under Francisco Sá Carneiro was formed on January 3, 1980, the chairmen of the coaling parties, Diogo Freitas do Amaral for the CDS and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles for the PPM, were also involved.
As a result of the so far not fully resolved aircraft accident on December 4, 1980, in which the Portuguese Prime Minister Sá Carneiro died, the government and thus the electoral alliance got into a serious crisis. First, the deputy chairman of the Portuguese Social Democrats, Francisco Pinto Balsemão , took over the government. However, since the AD could not find a comparable chairman who could unite the different political directions and currents of the three parties, it was unable to recover from the severe crisis and lost its popularity among the Portuguese population. After the electoral alliance in the presidential elections in 1980 and also in the local elections in 1982 suffered heavy loss of votes, broke the alliance in 1983. In the subsequent parliamentary elections on April 25, 1983 all parties were again individually on, it won the hitherto opposition Socialists with their top candidates Mario Soares .
Renaissance of AD in later decades
In the later decades there were repeated attempts to revive the Aliança Democrática . However, since the PPM sank more or less into insignificance, possible alliances were limited to PSD and CDS.
At the beginning of the nineties, the attempt at a new coalition failed because of the two party leaders, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa (PSD) and Paulo Portas (CDS). In the 2002 parliamentary elections , the PSD under Durão Barroso won and formed a coalition with the CDS under Paulo Portas ( Durão Barroso cabinet ). Various newspapers called this the renaissance of the former AD.
In the 2004 European elections , PSD and CDS also ran in an electoral alliance. In the tradition of the Aliança Democrática, the alliance was still called Força Portugal! (“Forward Portugal!”). However, the alliance did not win any votes, the PDS and CDS lost two seats together and achieved 33 percent and nine seats respectively in the European Parliament. Força Portugal! was dissolved again after the election.
For the 2014 European elections , the coalition is again running together with a list connection, this time under the name “Aliança Portugal”.
The parties, CDS-PP and PSD, which have ruled since 2011, also ran for the 2015 parliamentary elections . The electoral alliance was called " Portugal à Frente ".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Filipe Félix: AD: A imprevisível equação de Durão mais Portas ( Memento of July 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) , [Alliança Democrática: The unpredictable equation Durão mal Portas]. In: Público , March 29, 2002
- ↑ Victor Ferreira: Coligação PSD / CDS para as europeias chama-se Aliança Portugal. In: Público. March 1, 2014, accessed April 22, 2014 (Portuguese).
- ↑ Passos e Portas dão "primeiro passo para a mais credível das opções de Governo" . In: Expresso , April 25, 2015 (Portuguese)