Democratic and Social Center / People's Party

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The Democratic and Social Centre / People's Party (Portuguese: Partido do Centro Democrático e Social / Partido Popular, pron. IPA: [pɐɾ'tiðu du 'sẽtɾu dɨmu'kɾatiku i susi'aɫ / pɐɾ'tiðu pupu'laɾ], or CDS/PP) is a Portuguese Christian Democratic political party. Led by Ribeiro e Castro, this party holds 12 seats in the 230-member Assembly of the Republic. It is regarded as the most right-wing of the parliamentary parties in Portugal, and has historically been close (albeit unofficially) to the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1980s and early 1990s its members in the European Parliament once sat with the European People's Party and were afterwards affiliated with the Eurosceptic Union for a Europe of Nations, returning to the European People's Party in 2004.

Founded in 1974 by Adelino Amaro da Costa and Diogo Freitas do Amaral (who joined in 2005 the socialist led government of Portugal), the People's Party has been a relatively small, but significant, player on the Portuguese political scene. It enjoyed its greatest popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when together with the Social Democratic Party and a couple of other parties, it formed part of the Democratic Alliance. In 1983 the Alliance was dissolved, and the People's Party lost 16 of its 46 parliamentary seats later that year. In the general elections of 1987 and 1991, the party was decimated as its supporters went over en mass to the Social Democrats, whose leader, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, appealed to the same constituency as the People's Party- for a time, the party was reduced to four members of parliament, earning the nickname taxi-party. Support for the People's Party held up in local government elections, however, as well as for elections to the European Parliament, and its support in parliamentary elections partially recovered, though not to previous levels, after Cavaco Silva retired and some of the party's former supporters returned to the fold. In the three following elections, it has won between 14 and 16 seats.

In the Portuguese legislative election, 2002, the failure of the PSD, led by José Manuel Durão Barroso, to get an absolute majority of MPs, led to CDS/PP participation in government for the first time in almost 20 years. Joining the coalition government, party leader Portas became Minister for Defence. Celeste Cardona became Minister for Justice, while Bagão Félix (a PP fellow-traveller) was chosen to be Minister for Social Affairs.

In the Portuguese legislative election, 2005, the party lost votes and 2 MPs. Combined with the crushing defeat of its coalition partner, the PSD, and the failure of all the aims the party leader, Paulo Portas, had set for the elections, led to his resignation from office.

In April 24th, a new leader, Ribeiro e Castro (a Member of the European Parliament), was elected in the party's Congress held in Lisbon.