The party of Salazar: historical background, organization and duties of the União Nacional

Abstract

What was the União Nacional and what did it mean regarding the settling and the strengthening of Salazar's regime? As far as the author is concerned, the União Nacional was not only a creation by Salazar himself, but mainly one of the instruments serving his strategy of power. During the 1^st stage of the military dictatorship, the União Nacional had been an «impossible» project; Salazar alone had the field clear before him to create a «unique nationalist front» under his strict control. In 1930, a decree-law created the União Nacional, in order do fill in the gap left by the 1^st Republic multiparty system. It was an emanation from the State and was never able to get its emancipation, its means and field of action remaining deliberately restricted. Nevertheless, it is the author's opinion that the União Nacional fulfilled some indispensable duties, according to the internal logic of Salazarism: to support the monopoly of political power by the government; to neutralize, centrally and regionaly, all the forces that might contend with Salazar's power; to help to ligitimate the regime by staging electoral victories; to make unmovable and unreachable the power of the leader; to enable the unification of the Conservatives, and this way, internally insuring against possible conflicts, and controlling either discords or projects that might threaten the regime stability .