The Christian Democratic Union of Timor (''União Democrata-Crista de Timor'') UDC was a

centre-right Centre-right politics is the set of right-wing politics, right-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. It is commonly associated with conservatism, Christian democracy, liberal conservatism, and conservative liberalis ...

Christian democratic Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

East Timor Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

History

On 14 March 1998, it split from the

União Democrática Timorense The Timorese Democratic Union (, UDT) is a conservative political party in Timor-Leste. It was the first party to be established in the country on May 11, 1974, following the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. History Early history (1974– ...

(UDT) in Portugal. From August 2000, the party performed with the Partido Democrata Cristão (PDC) under the joint leadership of Vicente da Silva Guterres and Arlindo Marçal, the former moderator of the East Timor Protestant Christian Church. The UDC was represented in the National Council (NC), the PDC was not. Guterres represented the UDC in the

Conselho Nacional de Resistência Timorense The National Council of Maubere Resistance (Portuguese: Conselho Nacional da Resistência Maubere, or CNRM) was an umbrella organisation of East Timorese individuals and organisations dedicated to resisting the Indonesian occupation of East ...

(CNRT), the umbrella organization of the Timorese resistance, to which Guterres belonged since its inception in 1998. In the CNRT he held the post of secretary. On 5 August 2000, some members split off again as the PDC, while the UDC/PDC alliance continued to exist. At the first legislative elections, 30 August 2001, the party won 0.7% of the popular vote and 1 out of 88 seats. After the Constituent Assembly elections in 2001, Guterres entered East Timor's

National Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

as leader and sole representative of the UDC/PDC. Guterres has belonged to the Congresso Nacional da Reconstrução Timorense (CNRT) since 2007, while his party wanted to merge with the PDC under its banner. However, for the

2017 East Timorese parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Timor-Leste on 22 July 2017. Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, Fretilin narrowly emerged as the largest party in the National Parliament (Timor-Leste), National Parliament, winning 23 seats to ...

, the UDC submitted its own electoral list to the

East Timor Supreme Court of Justice The Timor-Leste Supreme Court of Justice (), also known as the Court of Appeal of Timor-Leste, is the highest court of Timor-Leste. It was established by the Constitution of Timor-Leste with ultimate jurisdiction over all legal, constitutional ...

.Tatoli (ANTIL)
''UDC-PST-KHUNTO ohin hatama ona lista kandidatura ba TR''
retrieved 30 May 2017.

Ideology

The ideology of the UDC is based on Christian humanism and the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. The majority of the 1,500 members at times are Catholics. As a political system, they aimed for a multi-party system with a semi-presidential form of government based on the French model in the elections to the

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

for independent East Timor, albeit with a strong limitation of the president's powers. She also advocated the market economy. The UDC had observer status with the International Christian Democratic Union.Michaela Müller und Monika Schlicher: ''Politische Parteien und Gruppierungen in Ost-Timor'', Indonesien-Information Nr. 1 2002 (Ost-Timor)
/ref> Pat Walsh: (englisch;

MS Word Microsoft Word is a word processor program, word processing program developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platf ...

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References

Christian democratic parties in Asia Defunct political parties in Timor-Leste {{EastTimor-party-stub