Partido Nacional Republicano
The National Republican Party (in Portuguese : Partido Nacional Republicano ) was a political party from the time of the first republic in Portugal . The party was entirely geared towards its founder, Sidónio Pais , and was therefore unofficially referred to as the "Sidonist Party" ( Partido Sidonista - after Sidónio Pais' first name).
history
On December 5, 1917 , Captain Sidónio Pais launched a coup against the republic and forced the resignation of the Afonso Augusto da Costa government . President Bernardino Machado went into exile. Pais suspended the constitution and tried to establish a “New Republic” (República Nova) (not to be confused with the “New State”, cf. Estado Novo ), an authoritarian state with a strong president. Pais was a charismatic and populist politician, his New Republic had strong features of a corporate state and thus anticipated the Salazar years , so to speak . In order to give his new state system a coat of democratic legitimacy, Pais is preparing to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on April 28, 1918. The planned presidential elections were a novelty, since under the old constitution the president was not elected directly by the people but by parliament. With two decrees of March 11th and 30th, 1918 Sidónio Pais changed this and also allowed the third general elections of the First Republic, i.e. H. Hold elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate. For these elections he founded the National Republican Party in the spring of 1918.
In addition to his party, Pais was also supported by the monarchists, the unionists and other right-of-center parties. His party won the elections with an overwhelming majority (108 seats in the House of Representatives and 31 in the Senate). However, the situation in Portugal after the coup was not such that one could speak of free elections. The Democrats , Pais' main opponent, also boycotted the elections.
On December 14, 1918, Pais was shot dead in an assassination attempt at Lisbon's Rossio train station . The now leaderless National Republican Party soon became politically insignificant. Their remnants eventually merged with the Liberal Republican Union and the Republican Party of National Reconstruction to form the Republican Nationalist Party .
In 1923 the party was dissolved.