Democratic Renewal Party (Portugal)

Democratic Renewal Party Partido Renovador Democrático
Logo of the PRD
Founded	1985
Dissolved	2000
Ideology	Centrism, Eanist Republicanism, Populism, Portuguese Social Democracy (minority faction) and Catholic Progressivism (minority faction)
Political position	Centre, Centre-left
International affiliation	None
European affiliation	none, Confederation of Socialist Parties of the European Community (1989-1993), Group of the Party of European Socialists (1993-1994) (had one MEP elected as part of the Socialist Party lists)
Official colours	Green
Politics of Portugal Political parties Elections

The Democratic Renewal Party (Portuguese: Partido Renovador Democrático, pronounced: [pɐɾˈtiðu ʁɨnuvɐˈðoɾ dɨmuˈkɾatiku], or PRD; also Democratic Renovator Party) was a Portuguese political party, founded in 1985 with the political support of the until-then-independent President of the Republic, Ramalho Eanes. At the time of its foundation, it was meant to "moralize Portuguese political life" and the party positioned itself in the political centre. Its first leader was Hermínio Martinho.

A short time after its foundation, the PRD profited by the dissolution of the Portuguese parliament, occupied at the time by a grand coalition between the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party (from both of which it included dissidents: José Medeiros Ferreira, both former foreign Minister in a Mário Soares government and supporter of the AD as a dissident, on the Socialist side and Joaquim Magalhães Mota, co-founder of the Social Democrats, on the Social Democratic side, for example). Due to a disastrous economic policy, Ramalho Eanes dissolved parliament and called a new election where the newly founded PRD surprisingly won 18% of the vote and got 45 MPs. The election did not give the majority of the seats to any party, so the party with the most votes, the Social Democratic Party, formed a minority government with PRD tactical support, sending the former partners, the Socialists, into opposition.

In the local elections of 1985, however, the party began to have difficulties, achieving only 5% of the voting and few seats. In the following presidential election, in 1986, the party supported Salgado Zenha along with the Portuguese Communist Party, but its candidate did not manage to reach the second round.

In 1987, the party made a decision that would lead to its dissolution, supporting a motion of no-confidence, along with the Communists and the Socialists, that led to the fall of the first government of Aníbal Cavaco Silva, elected in 1985. In the subsequent legislative election, the party lost most of its support, almost disappearing from parliament, losing 38 of its 45 MPs. Meanwhile, Ramalho Eanes had replaced Hermínio Martinho as leader of the party, a post he too left after the electoral disaster.

In the European Parliament election of 1989, the party made a pact with the Socialist Party and elected one MEP from the Socialist lists, Pedro Canavarro. In the legislative election of 1991, the party, at the time led by Canavarro, lost all of its parliamentary representation and never regained it, nor reached its previous position. Canavarro left the leadership of the party and was replaced by Manuel Vargas Loureiro, who led it until its extinction, decided by its own remaining members in the late 1990s.

External links

• Short biography of the PRD by the Documentation Centre of the Carnation Revolution (in Portuguese)