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(Redirected from African Party of Independence of Cape Verde)
The 'African Party of Independence of Cape Verde' (Portuguese: ''Partido Africano da Independência de Cabo Verde, PAICV'') is a former socialist party and presently a social-democratic political party in Cape Verde.
In 1956, its forerunner, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, was founded by the Cape Verdean nationalist leader Amílcar Cabral. PAIGC fought to overthrow the Portuguese Empire, unify Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, and of use its vanguardism to advance socialist revolution.
From 1961 on, the PAIGC fought a guerrilla warfare campaign in cooperation with its fraternal party umbrella group, the CONCP, during the Portuguese Colonial War. By 1973 the PAIGC controlled Guinea-Bissau, while Portugal's own Carnation Revolution in 1974 effectively dissolved the empire, relinquishing Cape Verde within the next year.
After the wars of national liberation, the PAIGC established a socialist state within both territories under the late Amilcar Cabral's brother, Luís Cabral. In 1980, following a military coup in Guinea-Bissau that ousted Cabral, Cape Verde separated and its portion of the party took its present name. The PAICV maintained its regime of one party rule and state socialism until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The PAICV was defeated in 1991 in the first multi-party elections by the Movement for Democracy (MpD).
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 Cruz and São Filipe.
In presidential elections held on 11 and 25 February 2001, Pedro Verona Rodrigues Pires, who won 46.52% of the vote in the first round, narrowly defeated the MpD's Carlos Veiga by a margin of only 12 votes in the run-off.
In the last legislative election, held on 22 January 2006, the party won 52.28% of the popular vote and 41 out of 72 seats in the National Assembly.
In the latest presidential election held on 12 February 2006, Pedro Pires again defeated Carlos Veiga, winning 50.98% of the vote.