The National Union was the only legal political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 for most of the period of the Estado Novo, a right-wing dictatorship dominated by António de Oliveira Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...

.

The organization was founded in 1930 during the National Dictatorship

Ditadura Nacional

The Ditadura Nacional was the name of the Portuguese regime initiated by the election of President Óscar Carmona in 1928 that lasted until the adoption of the new constitution in 1933, when the régime changed its name to Estado Novo...

 period of 1928-33. Officially it was not a political party, but an "organisation of unity of all the Portuguese". The party won all seats in elections to the Portuguese National Assembly

Assembly of the Republic

The Assembly of the Republic is the Portuguese parliament. It is located in a historical building in Lisbon, referred to as Palácio de São Bento, the site of an old Benedictine monastery...

 from 1934 to 1973. In 1970 – two years after Salazar had been replaced as leader by Marcello Caetano – the name of the party was altered to Acção Nacional Popular (People's National Action), and subsequent to Salazar's retirement faced formal competition in the 1969 election

Portuguese National Assembly election, 1969

Elections to the National Assembly of Portugal were announced on August 12 and subsequently held on October 29, 1969, and were the first under prime minister Marcelo Caetano, appointed in the previous year to replace long-term prime minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, who had been left...

, nevertheless winning all constituencies in a landslide.

See also

• Mocidade Portuguesa
  Mocidade Portuguesa
  The Mocidade Portuguesa was a Portuguese youth organization under the right-wing regime of the Estado Novo. Membership was compulsory between the ages of 7 and 14, and voluntary until the age of 25....
  
  , the Estado Novo's youth organization
• Portuguese Legion
  Portuguese Legion (Estado Novo)
  The Portuguese Legion was a Portuguese paramilitary state organization founded in 1936 during dictator António de Oliveira Salazar's right-wing regime, the Estado Novo. It was dissolved in 1974....
  
  , the Estado Novo's paramilitary organization