The
African Party of Independence of Cape Verde is a former
socialist partySocialist Party is the name of several different political parties around the world that are explicitly called Socialist. All of these parties claim to uphold socialism, though they might belong to different branches of the socialist movement and might therefore have different interpretations of...
and presently a social-democratic
political partyA political party is a political organization that seeks to attain and maintain political power within government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns...
in
Cape VerdeThe Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago located in the Macaronesia ecoregion of the North Atlantic Ocean, off the western coast of Africa, opposite Mauritania and Senegal....
.
In 1956, its forerunner, the
African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape VerdeThe African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde or PAIGC is a political party that governed Guinea-Bissau from the independence of the then Portuguese Guinea in 1974, until the late 1990s, and from 2004 to 2005. Currently it is the party with the largest number of seats in the...
(PAIGC), was founded by the Cape Verdean nationalist leader
Amílcar CabralAmílcar Lopes Cabral was an African agronomic engineer, writer, Marxist and nationalist guerrilla and politician. Also known by his nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led African nationalist movements in Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands and led Guinea-Bissau's independence movement...
. PAIGC fought to overthrow the
Portuguese EmpireThe Portuguese Empire was the first global empire in history, with territories in South America, Africa, India and South East Asia...
, unify Cape Verde and
Guinea-BissauThe Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in western Africa, and one of the smallest states in continental Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....
, and of use its
vanguardismIn the context of revolutionary struggle, vanguardism is a strategy whereby an organization attempts to place itself at the center of the movement, and steer it in a direction consistent with its ideology....
to advance socialist revolution.
From 1961 on, the PAIGC fought a
guerrilla warfareGuerrilla warfare is the irregular warfare warfare and combat in which a small group of combatants use mobile military tactics in the form of ambushes and raids to combat a larger and less mobile formal army....
campaign in cooperation with its
fraternal partyFraternal party literally means brother party. The term refers to a political party officially affiliated with another, often larger and/or international, political party or governmental party....
umbrella group, the CONCP, during the
Portuguese Colonial WarThe Portuguese Colonial War , also known as the Overseas War in Portugal or in the former colonies as the War of liberation , was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974...
.
The
African Party of Independence of Cape Verde is a former
socialist partySocialist Party is the name of several different political parties around the world that are explicitly called Socialist. All of these parties claim to uphold socialism, though they might belong to different branches of the socialist movement and might therefore have different interpretations of...
and presently a social-democratic
political partyA political party is a political organization that seeks to attain and maintain political power within government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns...
in
Cape VerdeThe Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago located in the Macaronesia ecoregion of the North Atlantic Ocean, off the western coast of Africa, opposite Mauritania and Senegal....
.
Forerunner
In 1956, its forerunner, the
African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape VerdeThe African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde or PAIGC is a political party that governed Guinea-Bissau from the independence of the then Portuguese Guinea in 1974, until the late 1990s, and from 2004 to 2005. Currently it is the party with the largest number of seats in the...
(PAIGC), was founded by the Cape Verdean nationalist leader
Amílcar CabralAmílcar Lopes Cabral was an African agronomic engineer, writer, Marxist and nationalist guerrilla and politician. Also known by his nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led African nationalist movements in Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands and led Guinea-Bissau's independence movement...
. PAIGC fought to overthrow the
Portuguese EmpireThe Portuguese Empire was the first global empire in history, with territories in South America, Africa, India and South East Asia...
, unify Cape Verde and
Guinea-BissauThe Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in western Africa, and one of the smallest states in continental Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....
, and of use its
vanguardismIn the context of revolutionary struggle, vanguardism is a strategy whereby an organization attempts to place itself at the center of the movement, and steer it in a direction consistent with its ideology....
to advance socialist revolution.
From 1961 on, the PAIGC fought a
guerrilla warfareGuerrilla warfare is the irregular warfare warfare and combat in which a small group of combatants use mobile military tactics in the form of ambushes and raids to combat a larger and less mobile formal army....
campaign in cooperation with its
fraternal partyFraternal party literally means brother party. The term refers to a political party officially affiliated with another, often larger and/or international, political party or governmental party....
umbrella group, the CONCP, during the
Portuguese Colonial WarThe Portuguese Colonial War , also known as the Overseas War in Portugal or in the former colonies as the War of liberation , was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974...
. By 1973 the PAIGC controlled Guinea-Bissau, while
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
's own
Carnation RevolutionThe Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril, was a left-leaning military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, that effectively changed the Portuguese regime from an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy after two years of a transitional period known as PREC ,...
in 1974 effectively dissolved the empire, relinquishing Cape Verde within the next year.
After the
wars of national liberationWars of national liberation are conflicts fought by indigenous military groups against an imperial power in the name of self-determination, thus attempting to remove that power's influence, in particular during the decolonization period...
, the PAIGC established a
socialist stateThe term socialist republic can carry one of several different meanings.Strictly speaking, any real or hypothetical state that officially claims to support or uphold the principles of socialism may be called a socialist state...
within both territories under the late Amilcar Cabral's brother,
Luís CabralLuís Severino de Almeida Cabral was the first President of Guinea-Bissau. He served from 1974 to 1980, when a military coup d'état led by João Bernardo "Nino" Vieira deposed him...
.
PAICV Established
Following a military coup in Guinea-Bissau that ousted Cabral in November 1980, the Cape Verde portion of the party became the PAICV in January 1981; it was headed by the President of Cape Verde,
Aristides PereiraAristides Maria Pereira was the first President of Cape Verde, serving from 1975 to 1991.Pereira was born on the island of Boa Vista. His first major government job was chief of telecommunications in Guinea-Bissau...
.
Multiparty Democracy
At an extraordinary party congress in February 1990, the PAICV approved the introduction of multiparty democracy. Pereira stepped down as General Secretary of PAICV in July 1990, and Prime Minister
Pedro PiresPedro Verona Rodrigues Pires has been the President of Cape Verde since March 2001. Before becoming President, he was Prime Minister from 1975 to 1991....
replaced him in August 1990. The PAICV won 23 of the 79
National AssemblyThe unicameral National Assembly of Cape Verde is the country's legislative body.-National People's Assembly :The country's first legislative election took place in June 1975...
seats in the January 1991 multiparty parliamentary election, losing to the
Movement for DemocracyThe Movimento para a Democracia is a more or less liberal party in Cape Verde. It was in power between 1991 and 2001. MPD was created on March 14, 1990, and their first convention was held in November 1990...
(MpD). Pereira was subsequently defeated in the February 1991 presidential election, and PAICV again fared poorly in the December 1991 local elections. At a party congress in August 1993, Pires was replaced as General Secretary by Aristides Lima and was instead elected as President of PAICV.
The PAICV won 21 out of 72 National Assembly seats in the December 1995 parliamentary election. At a PAICV congress in September 1997, Pires faced
José Maria NevesJosé Maria Pereira Neves is the Prime Minister of Cape Verde. He has been Prime Minister since 1 February 2001 and is a member of the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde ....
in a leadership contest, and Pires was elected with 68% of the vote. Pires stepped down as PAICV President in 2000 in preparation for a presidential bid in the next year's election and he was succeeded by Neves.
2001 Election
In the presidential election held on 11 and 25 February 2001, PAICV candidate Pedro Pires, who won 46.52% of the vote in the first round, narrowly defeated the MpD's
Carlos VeigaCarlos Alberto Wahnon de Carvalho Veiga is a Cape Verdean politician. He was Prime Minister of Cape Verde from April 4, 1991 to July 29, 2000, and he unsuccessfully ran for President as the candidate of the Movement for Democracy in 2001 and 2006.Veiga served as Prime Minister under President...
by a margin of only 12 votes in the
run-offThe two-round system is a voting system used to elect a single winner. Under runoff voting, the voter simply casts a single vote for their favorite candidate...
.
2006 Election
In the
parliamentary electionA parliamentary election took place in Cape Verde on 22 January 2006. This was the country's fourth legislative election since the introduction of multiparty politics in 1990....
held on 22 January 2006, PAICV won 52.28% of the popular vote and 41 out of 72 seats in the National Assembly.
In the
presidential electionA presidential election took place in Cape Verde on 12 February 2006. This was the country's fourth presidential election since the introduction of multiparty politics in 1990....
held on 12 February 2006, Pedro Pires again defeated Carlos Veiga, winning 50.98% of the vote.
Focus and Affiliation
The PAICV, which advertises itself as an Africa-oriented political party in contrast to the somewhat neoliberal MpD, enjoys its greatest support in the municipalities most comparable to those on the African mainland: the dense urban areas such as Praia, and rural agricultural areas such as
Santa CruzSanta Cruz is a municipality located in the eastern part of the island of Santiago in Sotavento in southern Cape Verde and is ranked fourth in Cape Verde. The municipal is around 32,965, the area is 150 km² and the density is about 205/km². The seat of the municipality is Vila de Pedra Badejo...
and
São FilipeSão Filipe is a municipality on the island of Fogo in the Sotavento group of Cape Verde.São Filipe is linked with a highway that almost encircles the whole island of Fogo but it is unaccessible to the east by small narrow gravel stretch and a small road to Mount Fogo...
.
The party is a full member of the
Socialist InternationalThe Socialist International is a worldwide organisation of democratic socialist, social democratic, socialist, and labour political parties. It was formed in 1951.- History :...
.