Democratic Alliance (Portugal)

The Aliança Democrática (AD), Portuguese for Democratic Alliance was a political alliance of the center-right in Portugal. The Aliança Democrática belonged to the party Partido Social Democrata (PPD / PSD), Centro Democrático e Social ( CDS) and Partido Popular Monárquico (PPM ), it existed between 1979 and 1983.

History

1979-1983

The alliance of the three parties was formed for the first time for the parliamentary elections in 1979, compared to the traditional in Portugal strong left parties to have greater chances. Led by the charismatic Socialists Francisco Sá Carneiro, the coalition won the 1979 early parliamentary elections with an absolute majority of 45.26 per cent ( 128 out of 250 MPs ).

In the 1980 regularly scheduled parliamentary elections, the AD could defend its absolute majority and even expand to a total of 47.59 per cent ( 134 out of 250 MPs ). Based on this election result, the government of Francisco Sá Carneiro was formed on January 3, 1980 the Chairman of the coalescing parties, Diogo Freitas do Amaral for the CDS and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles for the PPM, were also involved.

Due to the not yet fully enlightened plane crash on 4 December 1980, in which the Portuguese Prime Minister Sá Carneiro died, the government and thus the electoral alliance fell into a severe crisis. First took over the vice-chairman of the Portuguese social democrats, Francisco Pinto Balsemão the government. Since the AD but no comparable chairman found who could unite the different political currents and trends of the three parties, they could not recover from the severe crisis, and lost a strong popularity in the Portuguese population. After the electoral alliance in the presidential elections 1980 and also at the local elections in 1982 suffered heavy losses at the polls, broke the alliance in 1983. During the ensuing parliamentary elections on April 25, 1983, all parties were again individually, it won the then opposition Socialists with their top candidates Mário Soares.

Renaissance of AD in later decades

In the later decades there have been repeated attempts to let Aliança Democrática been revived. Since the PPM but more or less sank into insignificance, to possible alliances limited to PSD and CDS.

Beginning of the nineties, the attempt of a new coalition of the co-chairmen of the parties Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa ( PSD) and Paulo Portas (CDS). In the 2002 parliamentary elections, the PSD won under Durão Barroso and went into a coalition with the CDS under Paulo Portas one (Cabinet Durão Barroso ). Various newspapers referred to this as a renaissance of the former AD.

In the 2004 European elections, PSD and CDS were also in an electoral alliance. Although the tradition of Aliança Democrática, called the Alliance still Força Portugal! ( "Forward Portugal " ). However, the alliance did not yield any electoral gains, PDS and CDS lost two seats together and reached 33 percent and nine seats in the European Parliament. Força Portugal! was dissolved after the election again.