The Unitary Democratic Coalition (, CDU) is an

electoral An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated s ...

and

political coalition A parliamentary group, parliamentary caucus or political group is a group consisting of members of different political parties or independent politicians with similar ideologies. Some parliamentary systems allow smaller political parties, who a ...

between the

Portuguese Communist Party The Portuguese Communist Party (, , PCP) is a Communism, communist and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist List of political parties in Portugal, political party in Portugal. It is one of the strongest List of communist parties, communist par ...

() and the

Ecologist Party "The Greens" The Ecologist Party "The Greens" (, , PEV) is a Portugal, Portuguese Eco-socialism, eco-socialist List of political parties in Portugal, political party. It is a member of the European Green Party, European Greens and a founding member of the Eu ...

( Portuguese: Partido Ecologista "Os Verdes" or PEV). The coalition also integrates the political movement Democratic Intervention (). The coalition was formed in 1987 in order to run to the simultaneous

legislative election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections ...

and

European Parliament election Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Until 2019, 751 ...

that were held on July 19 of that year. It achieved its best result in the 1987 elections both nationally and locally. From

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

until

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

, the party consistently won between six and ten percent of the national vote in elections to the Assembly of the Republic until

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

and

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

, in which the coalition dropped below 5% nationally for the first time. The coalition supported the minority Socialist Costa Government from 2015 until 2019 with a

confidence and supply In parliamentary system, parliamentary democracies based on the Westminster system, confidence and supply is an arrangement under which a minority government (one which does not control a majority in the legislature) receives the support of one ...

agreement.

History

Since the beginning of the coalition, the member parties have never participated separately in any election. The Communist Party is the major force of the coalition and has the majority of places in the electoral lists while the Greens are a smaller party. For example, the Greens were responsible for 2 members of parliament among the 17 elected by the coalition in the 2015 legislative election. Each party has its own parliamentary group and counts as a separate party in official issues. Along with the Left Bloc, the coalition supported the minority

Socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

Costa Government from 2015 until 2019 under a

agreement. This was known as the "Geringonça" (''Contraption'') deal, a setup that Prime minister António Costa decided to end following the

2019 elections The following elections were scheduled to occur in 2019. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems has a calendar of upcoming elections around the world, and the National Democratic Institute also maintains a calendar of elections in cou ...

. In the 2022 election, the CDU won six seats while the Greens achieved zero seats. In the 2024 election, the CDU won four seats and the Greens zero, with the coalition achieving just 3.3 percent of the votes. In 2024, the coalition lost their historic seat in the

Beja district The Beja District (; ) is located in southern Portugal. The district capital is the city of Beja. It is the largest district of the country by area, comprising around 11% of Portuguese territory. It borders Spain. Municipalities The district i ...

and for the first time lost all MPs in the

Alentejo Alentejo ( , , ) is a geographical, historical, and cultural region of south–central and southern Portugal. In Portuguese, its name means "beyond the Tagus" (). Alentejo includes the regions of Alto Alentejo Province, Alto Alentejo and Bai ...

region.

Symbol

The present symbol of CDU shows the PCP's symbol and the PEV's symbol, a

hammer and sickle The hammer and sickle (Unicode: ) is a communist symbol representing proletarian solidarity between industrial and agricultural workers. It was first adopted during the Russian Revolution at the end of World War I, the hammer representing wo ...

and a

sunflower The common sunflower (''Helianthus annuus'') is a species of large annual forb of the daisy family Asteraceae. The common sunflower is harvested for its edible oily seeds, which are often eaten as a snack food. They are also used in the pr ...

, respectively, with the respective names below. That symbol replaced a former one that featured three hexagons with the inscription: CDU and was often used with a beehive. That was sometimes said to mean that CDU worked just like a bee (collectively and every day) and the hexagons were meant to represent the cell-based

Leninist Leninism (, ) is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vangu ...

organization of the PCP. File:CDU Portugal 1987.png, Coalition logo in 1987. File:PCP-PEV.svg, Current logo of the coalition.

Youth organization

The coalition has a youth wing, called

Juventude CDU Juventude CDU is the youth wing of the Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU) in Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost poin ...

, that develops political work in youth related subjects, along with youth-oriented activities, mainly during the electoral campaigns. The Juventude CDU is mainly composed by members of the youth wings of the parties that compose the CDU, the

Portuguese Communist Youth The Portuguese Communist Youth ( or ) is the youth organization of the Portuguese Communist Party, and was founded on 10 November 1979, after the unification of the Young Communist League and the Communist Students League. The JCP has a polit ...

and the Ecolojovem.

Election results

Assembly of the Republic

Vote share in the Portuguese legislative elections ImageSize = width:600 height:200 PlotArea = width:538 height:170 left:40 bottom:20 AlignBars = justify Colors = id:CDU value:red legend:CDU DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:15 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:0 PlotData = bar:Seats color:claret width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:S bar:1987 color:CDU from:start till:12.1 text:12.1 bar:1991 color:CDU from:start till:8.8 text:8.8 bar:1995 color:CDU from:start till:8.6 text:8.6 bar:1999 color:CDU from:start till:9.0 text:9.0 bar:2002 color:CDU from:start till:6.9 text:6.9 bar:2005 color:CDU from:start till:7.5 text:7.5 bar:2009 color:CDU from:start till:7.9 text:7.9 bar:2011 color:CDU from:start till:7.9 text:7.9 bar:2015 color:CDU from:start till:8.3 text:8.3 bar:2019 color:CDU from:start till:6.3 text:6.3 bar:2022 color:CDU from:start till:4.3 text:4.3 bar:2024 color:CDU from:start till:3.2 text:3.2 bar:2025 color:CDU from:start till:2.9 text:2.9

Presidential

European Parliament

Regional Assemblies

Local elections

Notes

References

External links

CDU Official SitePortuguese Communist Party Official Site"The Greens" Official Site
{{Authority control 1987 establishments in Portugal Communist parties in Portugal Eco-socialist parties Euroscepticism in Portugal Left-wing political party alliances Political parties established in 1987 Political party alliances in Portugal Portuguese Communist Party