The Christian Democratic Union (Unión Demócrata Cristiana) is a 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 Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

 of the Christian Right

Christian right

Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...

.
At the legislative elections

Elections in Ecuador

Elections in Ecuador gives information on election and election results in Ecuador.Ecuador elects on national level a head of state, , and a legislature. The President of the Republic and his vice-president are elected on one ballot for a four-year term by the people...

, 20 October 2002, the party won 4 out of 100 seats. At the last elections, held in October 2006, it won 2 seats in the Congress. It had no presidential candidate. It was Ecuador's largest political party, having won 35% of the seats in the 1998 elections to the Congreso Nacional. It reached its first great success in 1978 when party member Osvaldo Hurtado

Osvaldo Hurtado

Luis Osvaldo Hurtado Larrea is an Ecuadorian author and politician who served as President of Ecuador from 1981 to 1984....

 became the running mate on the successful presidential ticket of Jaime Roldós. Hurtado served as President of Ecuador from 1981 to 1984 due to Roldós's death in office. In the 1998 elections, party member Jamil Mahuad

Jamil Mahuad

Jorge Jamil Mahuad Witt is an Ecuadorian lawyer and politician and the 51st President of Ecuador from August 10, 1998 to January 21, 2000. There was a severe economic crisis in Ecuador , which had led to a 60% cut in the armed forces budget...

 was elected president, and after a short military coup, he was succeeded in 2000 by the vice-president, Gustavo Noboa

Gustavo Noboa

Gustavo José Joaquín Noboa Bejarano is an Ecuadorian politician, former President of Ecuador and Vice President during Jamil Mahuad's government.- Education :...

, who was also in the party. It had a long-term alliance with the Popular Democratic Party. That alliance ended and the party was severely weakened in the 2002 elections.

The party describes its economic platform as communitarian capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

. It calls for workers to own the means of production, and for production to be "oriented to human needs rather than the market."

Other planks are:

• income redistribution
• internationalism
  Internationalism (politics)
  Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
  
  
• support to neoliberalism
  Neoliberalism
  Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...