Democratic Party of the Atlantic
political party in Portugal
The Democratic Party of the Atlantic (Portuguese: Partido Democrático do Atlântico, Portuguese pronunciation: [pɐɾˈtiðu ðɨmuˈkɾatiku ðu ɐˈtlɐ̃tiku]) was a political party, based in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. A regional party, whose electorate was concentrated on the islands of São Miguel, it was created by former supporters of the New State. it seldom obtained more than 1% of the votes in regional or national elections (even within the Azores).
History
The party had its origin in the Movimento para a Autodeterminação do Povo Açoriano (MAPA) (Self-determination Movement for the Azorean People) founded in 1979 by Francisco da Costa Matos. The Movement and, later the PDA, promoted a form of home rule for the Azores, following the example of the Bermudas. While registered with the Supremo Tribunal de Justiça (Supreme Court) on 5 November 1979 as the União Democrática do Atlântico (Democratic Union of the Atlantic), it had changed its name to the PDA by the 1983 election.
In the Regional legislative election in the Azores held in 2004 the PDA got 284 votes.
It first presented a list of candidates for the national assembly elections on 20 February 2005, but only received 0.35% (1618 votes) for the Azores.
Although initially perceived as a far-right party, the party claimed to be as a right-of-centre party. It supported Socialist Manuel Alegre when he ran as an independent in the Portuguese presidential election of 2006 and, again, in 2011.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Democratic Party of the Atlantic” is political party in Portugal. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Democratic, Party and Atlantic, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1819658. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979, 1983, 2004 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Democratic Party of the Atlantic” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.