Portuguese Communist Party
The Partido Comunista Português [ pɐɾ'tidu kumu'niʃtɐ puɾtu'geʃ ] listen? / I to German Portuguese Communist Party, abbreviated PCP, is one of the oldest, still active communist parties of Western Europe. In 1987 she went with the Greens a voting alliance Coligação Democrática Unitaria (CDU, German United Democratic Coalition ) and occurs since in elections in Portugal under that name.
Secretary General of the party is Jerónimo de Sousa. The party is represented by 13 deputies in the Portuguese National Assembly. It also provides Member of the European Parliament, which is part of the Group of the European United Left there - Nordic Green Left are.
The party has the Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses ( CGTP ) via a politically close to their union, their own youth organization, the Juventude Comunista Portuguesa (JCP ), and with Avante! on its own weekly party newspaper whose annual press festival " Festa do Avante! " an important cultural event in Portugal and the largest gathering of the party is.
- 4.1 parliamentary elections
- 4.2 Presidential Elections
History
Founding of the party
The PCP was founded on March 6, 1921 as the Portuguese Section of the Communist International ( Comintern ). It had its antecedents in the trade union and labor movement as well as anarcho -union movements from the early days of the First Portuguese Republic. 1923 led the PCP its first party congress in Lisbon by.
Estado Novo: In the illegality
The coup of May 28, 1926 abolished the First Republic in Portugal. It was replaced by the Estado Novo, a military dictatorship, which developed gradually to an authoritarian, fascist corporate state under the leadership of Salazar. Immediately after the coup of 1926, the Communist Party was banned; until 1974, after the Carnation Revolution, the PCP was admitted as a party again.
Bento António Gonçalves organized the party new to the illegality. After Salazar's power, the party and its leaders main target of state repression measures were; many officials were arrested by the secret police, PIDE, tortured and sent to internment camps. Also Gonçalves was arrested and died in Detention Tarafal in Cape Verde.
A communist- inspired mutiny at two in the Tagus moored warships of the Portuguese Navy in September 1936 was quelled quickly. In 1938 the party was expelled from the Comintern, which increasingly came under Stalinist influence. It was not until 1947, the party again on relations with the CPSU and the Soviet Union. 1945 there was a temporary cautious liberalization of the Salazar regime; with the "Movement of Democratic Unity" ( Movimento de Unidades Democrática, MUD ), an opposition group provided within which things down to the Communists to gain influence. 1948 MUD was banned again. Álvaro Cunhal traveled to resumption of relations in the Soviet Union and was arrested by the PIDE on his return to Portugal. Until his escape in 1960 he was imprisoned; thereafter he lived until the Carnation Revolution in 1974, first in exile in Moscow, and later in Prague. In 1961 he was elected general secretary of the party in exile.
1957 led the party in Kiev their first party outside Portugal by, while she stood on the side of the forming African liberation movements, who wanted to fight for the independence of the Portuguese colonies from the mother country.
Carnation Revolution and a New Beginning
The Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 that brought an end to the dictatorship in Portugal. On 27 April, the political prisoners, including many Communists were released on 30 April Álvaro Cunhal returned from his exile in Prague back to Lisbon. For the first time in 48 years of May Day was celebrated again in Portugal. More than half a million people took part in the main event, when Álvaro Cunhal and the socialist Mário Soares was the keynote speaker.
On May 17 In 1974, the party newspaper Avante! for the first time legally appear in Portugal, on October 20, led the party for the first time a party congress back in the country by and on January 12, 1975 reached the communists of the first part of their re-admission in the new Portugal.
After the failed coup of 11 March 1975, the more conservative supporters of ex-president Spínola exacerbated the provisional government of Prime Minister Vasco Gonçalves, were also involved in the Communist ministers, their socialist course. A number of measures were carried out, including the nationalization of Portuguese banks, which was also requested by the PCP. The party was dedicated to this period mainly the issue of land reform. Especially the Alentejo with its marked by large estates and a variety of landless peasants tracts of land, especially to Beja, Évora and Setúbal, so became a reliable stronghold of the party.
In the elections to the Constituent Assembly on 25 April 1975, the party won 12.52% of the vote and 30 deputies mandates. As requested by you, containing the new Portuguese Constitution because several times the term "socialism" and mentioned even once the " classless society".
At the first general election under the new constitution on 25 April 1976 PCP acquired 14.56% of the vote and 40 seats. However, election winners were the Socialists, who represented a minority government. Became Prime Minister Mário Soares. On her eighth party congress in the same year of his opposition to the PCP conceived of it as a step backwards in building socialism in Portugal policy of the new government decided.
Third Republic
In the parliamentary elections in 1979 the party joined with a Community list "Alliance of the United People" ( Aliança Povo Unido APU) together with the " Portuguese Democratic Movement " ( Movimento Democrático Português, MDP / CDE ), one the from the time of the resistance against Estado Novo derived grouping at. The APU received 18.96 % of the vote and 47 deputies. However, election winners were the conservative Social Democrats, whose leader Sá Carneiro 's new prime minister was. The new government tried originating from the period immediately after the Carnation Revolution socialist measures to eliminate step by step again, and therefore met the determined resistance of the PCP. In the elections of 1980, the PCP was only 41 MPs, the Social Democrats were able to extend their lead. Also in 1983 joined the party in the Community list APU, which accounted for 18.2 % of the vote and 44 seats.
In the presidential elections of 1986 Mário Soares scored a surprise victory when he came up with 25 % to second place before the candidate of the PCP, Salgado Zenha, which reached 21%. Winner in the first round was the candidate of the conservatives, the CDS - chairman Diogo Freitas do Amaral. The communists thus did not make it into the second round of presidential elections that should decide between Soares and Freitas do Amaral. The PCP therefore summoned a last minute special party, in which he called on his supporters to vote for Soares, who was against Freitas do Amaral viewed as the lesser evil. Soares was then also the new President.
In 1987 there were new elections. The PCP had by now fallen out with the MDP / CDE, its partners within the APU and therefore came with a new list of association: the " Coligação Democrática Unitaria " linked the PCP with the Green Party ( PEV ), it is still valid today. The CDU won in 1987 12.18% of the vote and 31 deputies mandates.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union
Towards the end of the eighties occurred drastic developments world-historical proportions. The collapse of socialism in Eastern and Central Europe, German reunification (1990 ) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union ( 1991) clearly illustrated the crisis of communism, at least in its Soviet expression.
Most Western European communist parties responded to these developments with a more or less strong shift away from Marxism -Leninism, towards a more pluralistic and less dogmatic socialism. One example is the development of the party program of the PDS in Germany was compared to the SED program. However, the PCP went another way: on an extraordinary party congress in 1990 reaffirmed the turn of the party to Marxism- Leninism after a heated debate, and Álvaro Cunhal re-elected as a guarantee of adherence to the old course as general secretary of the party.
The decision of the party paid is not from among the following choices. In the parliamentary elections of 1991, she gained only 8.84 % of the vote (17 MPs). 1992 Carlos Carvalhas was elected to succeed Álvaro Cunhal as general secretary of the party. The elections of 1995 brought a further slump in voter support (8.6%, 15 seats), a slight recovery in the elections of 1999 (9 %, 17 seats ) was not last, in the elections of 2002 was achieved by the PCP worst result so far with only 7% of the vote ( 12 seats). Carvalhas finally stepped back from his post in 2005, Jerónimo de Sousa became his successor. Under his leadership, the party succeeded in the elections of 2005, recorded a slight increase in votes (7.6 %, 14 deputies); also in the subsequent elections in 2009 ( 15 seats, 7.86% ). As the largest political opponents on the left margin, in particular, the Bloco de Esquerda who could read, especially in urban areas of developed PCP votes.
Programmatic and internal party organization
The PCP refers to himself in his program as a " vanguard of the working class ", for Marxism -Leninism " theoretical basis " of the party was ( " Partido político e vanguarda da classe Operária e de todos os trabalhadores (...) ", "A base teórica do PCP é o Marxismo - leninismo ").
The internal structure of PCP is based on democratic centralism. The supreme body of the Party is the Party Congress, which consists of elected delegates and must be convened by the Central Committee at least every four years. Between the party days is up to the Central Committee, which is elected by the party conferences, as a collective body, the leadership of the party. From their midst the central committee members choose the Secretary-General as the highest representative of the party.
At the 17th Congress of the PCP reiterated its rejection of the European Constitution. This is a project of neo-liberalism and the interests of the international monopoly capital committed, which restricts the sovereign rights of the smaller Member States and thus lies not in the national interest of Portugal. In addition, the congress rejected from membership of the PCP in the European Left Party. A supranational party would correspond to the current situation in the variety of ideological positions not meet the requirements, but constitutes rather a concession to the structures of the EU dar. Even the Euro rejects the party in its present form from; not because it is opposed in principle to a single European currency, but because they referred associated with the monetary union Maastricht criteria as neoliberal and the interests of the Portuguese workers and peasants opposed.
In economic policy, the PCP is in favor of a mixed economy, should be ensured by state-owned enterprises in key areas ( energy, industry, transport, communication). The party continues to demand a land reform with expropriation of large estates and transfer of lands to small farmers and cooperatives. In the foreign and military policy, the party is in favor of the dissolution of all military alliances and thus also questions the country's membership in NATO. The PCP spoke out against the participation of Portugal in the coalition of the willing in the recent Iraq war. The party also occurs for the legalization of abortion in the strongly catholic Portugal a particularly contentious issue.
Secretaries General
Election results
Parliamentary elections
█ █ <5%
█ █ 5-10%
█ █ 10-20%
█ █ > 20%
Presidential elections
(Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições - National Electoral Commission of Portugal )
In the elections of 1980 Alfredo de Brito withdrew his candidacy before the election in favor of General António Ramalho Eanes. In the 1996 elections Jerónimo Carvalho de Sousa withdrew his candidacy before the election in favor of Jorge Sampaio.