Misplaced Pages

Liberal Initiative

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Liberal political party in Portugal

Liberal Initiative Iniciativa Liberal
AbbreviationIL
PresidentRui Rocha
Secretary-GeneralMiguel Rangel
Vice presidentsBernardo Blanco
Angélique da Teresa
Ricardo Pais Oliveira
Ana Martins
Founded13 December 2017
HeadquartersAvenida do Bessa, 158 E 4100-012 Porto
Membership (2023)Increase 6,300
Ideology
Political positionCentre-right to right-wing
European affiliationAlliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
European Parliament groupRenew Europe
Colours  Sky Blue
Assembly of the Republic8 / 230
European Parliament2 / 21
Regional
Parliaments		2 / 104
Local government
(Mayors)		0 / 308
Local government
(Parishes)		0 / 3,091
Election symbol
Party flag
Website
iniciativaliberal.pt

The Liberal Initiative (Portuguese: Iniciativa Liberal, pronounced [inisjɐˈtivɐ liβɨˈɾal], IL) is a liberal political party in Portugal. Founded in 2017, it is currently led by Rui Rocha. The party has been described as being on the political right by academics and journalists. It has 8 elected seats out of a total of 230 in the Portuguese Parliament.

The party was founded in December 2017, and in October 2019, its debut year at the Portuguese legislative elections, it won one seat in the Portuguese Parliament. It had run in its first elections in May 2019 for the European Parliament and in 2020 supported its first government coalition, at regional level, after the 2020 Azorean regional election.

The party espouses a libertarian-influenced economic platform, including support for a flat income tax, privatisations and liberalisation of the labour market. However, it intends to preserve an equitable and universal welfare state to a certain extent. In other dimensions of life, the party favours views aligned with cultural and secular liberalism.

History

See also: Liberalism in Portugal

The Liberal Initiative was founded as an association in 2016, and was approved as a party by the Constitutional Court in 2017. It was admitted to the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, a European political party, in November 2017, having run for election for the first time in the 2019 European Parliament election in Portugal, garnering 0.9% of the votes, and failing to win any seats in the European Parliament. In the 2019 legislative election, the party won a single seat in the Portuguese Parliament through the electoral district of Lisbon, earning 67,681 votes in total, equivalent to 1.3% of the votes cast. At regional level, IL supported its first government coalition after the 2020 Azorean regional election. In the 2021 Portuguese local elections, it won 26 seats in municipal assemblies, and none in municipal councils. In the 2022 legislative election, the Liberal Initiative party increased the number of its MPs from one to eight with 5.0% of the vote. Besides João Cotrim Figueiredo (already a MP at the Portuguese Parliament and incumbent party leader), IL elected seven new MPs for the party, including Carlos Guimarães Pinto (a former party leader), as MPs.

Ideology and platform

Part of a series on
Liberalism
History
Principles
Philosophers
Politicians
Organizations
Regional variants
Related topics
Schools

The party has been described as liberal, neoliberal, liberal right, libertarian, and social liberal. It has been described as centre-right and right-wing, with its policy base described as combining economic liberalism with more progressive stances on cultural issues.

According to its own official statements about this topic, the Liberal Initiative was founded with the Oxford Manifesto in mind and believes in individual freedom, by which all individuals have fundamental rights, including the possibility of having a life of their own, owning property or choosing how they want to live in their community, closely following the principles of classical liberalism. The party's conception of freedom encompasses both the economic and social spheres as well as the political and individual spheres, and believes that if any of them are restricted, freedom ceases to exist. The party's political ideas are based on the idea of freedom as the greatest engine of human development, social harmony and economic prosperity. The party's leaders and founders have ascertained that they envisage Portugal as a country that will model itself on Germany's multi-payer health care system – which is paid for by a combination of public health insurance and private health insurance – on Ireland's corporate tax policy and on Estonia's fiscal, educational, and public administration systems, following classical liberal economic policies.

On 5 May 2018, the Liberal Initiative approved its political programme under the slogan "Less State, More Freedom" (Menos Estado, Mais Liberdade). The party proposes the reduction of the number of civil servants and the extension of their health system to all Portuguese citizens, as well as extending the freedom for parents to choose their children's school without it necessarily being linked to their address.

The party, which describes itself as a liberal party of all types of liberalism, rejects to be simplistically described as a blind follower of the political philosophy of libertarianism, arguing that while it defends a small government and opposes economic interventionism in principle, it also defends an effective government which guarantees the rule of law, universal healthcare, universal education, social security and a welfare state. The party said that it doesn't want to dismantle the Portuguese welfare state, but instead wants to "rationalize it" based on the principles of "sustainability and equity" by redefining its fairness proposition from the point of view of both social welfare beneficiaries/non-beneficiaries and taxpayers, regardless of age, current or previous occupation and other individual factors.

Platform for the 2019 legislative election

Among the measures announced for the 2019 parliamentary elections were:

  • Introducing a flat income tax rate of 15%.
  • Extending coverage by the ADSE [pt] ("Instituto de Proteção e Assistência na Doença") to all Portuguese citizens. This body is in charge of health care, and works like a health insurance, for the Portuguese civil servants only.
  • Providing freedom of choice of school in both the state-owned and privately owned systems, through a school-voucher system.
  • Granting more freedom for universities to define admission criteria, and following the American and British models for universities by adopting a student loan funding system.

Party factions

The Liberal Initiative has a number of internal factions:

Rui Rocha, current party leader.

Classical liberalism

This faction defends opposition to socialism through classical liberalism, calling for a low tax burden and promoting "efficient, effective and accountable government", while defending respect for individual, social, political and economic freedoms.

Social liberalism

This faction adheres to the principles of social liberalism. In 2024, a former candidate to the leadership of IL left it and is trying to establish a new party, the Social Liberal Party.

Libertarianism

The faction espouses an outright libertarian platform with neoliberal economic and political stances, whose proposals include support for a lower flat income tax, small government, unprecedented wave of privatisations and deeper economic liberalisation of the economy, including in the labour market, able to address modernisation and overstaffing issues in the civil service, productivity gaps and competitiveness problems of the country in the context of the European Union and globalization.

Conservative liberalism

The faction supporting Conservative liberalism, although being liberal on economic issues, is more conservative on social issues. By 25 November 2023, most of the members from this faction had left the party, with two joining Chega.

Organization

Structure and communication

Outdoor.

The party is organised and managed in a decentralised, digitised way. It has no physical headquarters in most municipalities of the country and makes heavy use of information and communication technologies. Since its foundation, the party made an impact through the acclaimed originality of its communication and marketing campaigns, in particular its eye-catching billboards.

Leadership

List of presidents

Name Portrait Constituency Start End Prime minister
1 Miguel Ferreira da Silva
(b. 1972) 		Lisbon 26 November 2017 13 October 2018 António Costa (2015–2024)
2 Carlos Guimarães Pinto
(b. 1983) 		Porto 13 October 2018 8 December 2019
3 João Cotrim de Figueiredo
(b. 1961) 		Lisbon 8 December 2019 22 January 2023
4 Rui Rocha
(b. 1970) 		Braga 22 January 2023 present
Luís Montenegro (2024-present)
Rui RochaJoão Cotrim de FigueiredoCarlos Guimarães Pinto


Elected politicians

Assembly of the Republic

16th Legislature (2024 – present) 15th Legislature (2022 – 2024) 14th Legislature (2019 – 2022)

Electoral performance

Assembly of the Republic

Vote share in the Portuguese legislative elections

Election Leader Votes % Seats +/- Government
2019 Carlos Guimarães Pinto 67,681 1.3 (#8) 1 / 230 New Opposition
2022 João Cotrim de Figueiredo 273,687 4.9 (#4) 8 / 230 Increase 7 Opposition
2024 Rui Rocha 319,877 4.9 (#4) 8 / 230 Steady 0 Opposition

Presidential

Election Candidate Votes % Result
2021 Tiago Mayan Gonçalves 134,991 3.2 (#6) Lost Red XN

European Parliament

Election Leader Votes % Seats +/– EP Group
2019 Ricardo Arroja 29,114 0.9 (#11) 0 / 21 –
2024 João Cotrim de Figueiredo 358,811 9.1 (#4) 2 / 21 Increase2 RENEW

Regional Assemblies

Region Election Leader Votes % Seats +/- Government
Azores 2024 Nuno Barata 2,482 2.2 (#5) 1 / 57 Steady0 Opposition
Madeira 2023 Nuno Morna 3,555 2.6 (#6) 1 / 47 Increase1 Opposition

Local elections

Election Leader Votes % Councillors +/- Mayors +/- Assemblies +/- Parishes +/-
2021 João Cotrim Figueiredo 64,849 1.3 (#8) 1 / 2,064 New 0 / 308 New 26 / 6,448 New 45 / 26,797 New

References

  1. "PSD está sem "visão reformista" e sem "urgência de transformar o país"". www.dn.pt.
  2. "Iniciativa Liberal é um partido de esquerda ou direita? O que respondem os membros da IL". Observador (in Portuguese). 12 December 2021.
  3. "Portugal terá Parlamento mais plural e com estreia da extrema direita". O Globo (in Portuguese). 7 October 2019.
  4. "O debate em que a Iniciativa Liberal pisca à esquerda e à direita como Ruth Marlene e o CDS "cancela um grupo parlamentar inteiro"". CNN Portugal (in Portuguese). 5 January 2022.
  6. ^ Giorgi, Elisabetta De; Santana-Pereira, José (2021). The Exceptional Case of Post-Bailout Portugal. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-46262-3. (...) due to both the rise of two new right-wing parties, the liberal IL (Iniciativa Liberal – Liberal Initiative) (...)
  7. ^ Botelho, Catarina Santos; Ribeiro, Ana Teresa (2020). "Portugal". In Albert, Richard; Landau, David E.; Faraguna, Pietro; Drugda, Simon (eds.). I-CONnect-Clough Center 2019 Global Review of Constitutional Law: Country Reports. Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy. ISBN 978-1-7343197-1-2. SSRN 3742104. (...) two new right-wing parties (the radical right 'CHEGA' and the liberals 'Iniciativa Liberal') entered the Portuguese parliament (...)
  8. ^ Jalali, Carlos; Moniz, Joāo; Silva, Patrícia. "In the Shadow of the 'Government of the Left': The 2019 Legislative Elections in Portugal". In Giorgi & Santana-Pereira (2021), pp. 229-255. "The third noteworthy party on the right was IL (Iniciativa Liberal – Liberal Initiative) (...)"
  10. "Sobre os grupos parlamentares". www.parlamento.pt (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 13 June 2023.
  11. ^ "Legislativas 2019 – Resultados Globais". www.legislativas2019.mai.gov.pt. Archived from the original on 27 July 2020. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
  12. ^ "Iniciativa Liberal anuncia acordo com PSD para viabilização de governo nos Açores". TSF Rádio Notícias. 7 November 2020.
  13. ^ Riccardo Marchi; Andre Azevedo Alves (2022). "The Right and the Far Right in the Portuguese Democracy (1974-2022)". In António Costa Pinto; Jorge M. Fernandes; Pedro C. Magalhães (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Portuguese Politics. OUP Oxford. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-19-266773-1.
  14. ^ "O Estado social da Iniciativa Liberal". Jornal Expresso (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  15. ^ Portugal, Rádio e Televisão de (13 January 2022). "Iniciativa Liberal quer menos intervenção do Estado e quintuplicar representação no Parlamento". Iniciativa Liberal quer menos intervenção do Estado e quintuplicar representação no Parlamento (in Portuguese). Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  16. Sampaio, Gustavo (22 July 2017). "Há algum partido verdadeiramente liberal em Portugal?". O Jornal Económico - Notícias, Economia, Política, Empresas, Mercados e Opinião (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  17. ^ "Portugal com rumo liberal". Expresso (in Portuguese). 21 February 2023. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  18. "Iniciativa Liberal já é um partido". ECO. 16 December 2017.
  19. "ALDE Member Parties". ALDE Party.
  20. "Meet our leaders: João Cotrim Figueiredo (Iniciativa Liberal, Portugal)". ALDE Party.
  21. "ALDE welcomes new member parties | ALDE Party". www.aldeparty.eu. Archived from the original on 2 December 2017.
  22. "Europeias 2019 – Resultados Globais". www.eleicoes.mai.gov.pt. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
  23. "Resultados Autárquicas 2021. Veja quem ganhou no seu município e na sua freguesia". Observador. 26 September 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  24. "Portugal election: Key takeaways as Socialists cement power". euronews. 31 January 2022. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  25. "Portugal". www.parties-and-elections.eu. 2022. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  26. Alberta Giorgi; Júlia Garraio; Teresa Toldy, eds. (2024). "Glossary". Religion, Gender, and Populism in the Mediterranean. Taylor & Francis. p. 136. ISBN 9781000987515.
  27. Marina Costa Lobo (2023). "Portugal: EU Issue Voting in Mainstream and Challenger Parties". In Marina Costa Lobo (ed.). The Impact of EU Politicisation on Voting Behaviour in Europe. Springer Nature. p. 281. ISBN 9783031291876.
  28. Marco Lisi; Edalina Rodrigues Sanches; Jayane dos Santos Maia (2021). "Party System Renewal or Business as Usual? Continuity and Change in Post Post-Bailout Portugal". In Elisabetta De Giorgi; José Santana-Pereira (eds.). The Exceptional Case of Post-Bailout Portugal. Routledge. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-000-46262-3.
  29. ^ Jorge M. Fernandes; Miguel Won (2021). "Portugal: debating in a party-centred legislature". In Hanna Back; Marc Debus; Jorge M. Fernandes (eds.). The Politics of Legislative Debates. Oxford University Press. p. 677. ISBN 978-0-19-884906-3.
  30. "Portugal votes in close-fought election". France 24. 30 January 2022. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  31. Jones, Sam (30 January 2022). "Portugal's ruling Socialist party on course to win snap general election". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  32. Vasconcelos e Sousa, João (22 January 2023). "Sociais-liberais contra conservadores: há "luta de classes" na IL?". Jornal de Notícias (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on 26 January 2023. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  33. "PS mais absoluto, PSD em queda livre. Aliança e Iniciativa Liberal podem eleger". TSF. 31 August 2019.
  34. "Voltou a guerra dos cartazes. PS diz "cumprimos", Iniciativa Liberal satiriza "com primos"". Renascença. 7 August 2019.
  35. Rui Alexandre Novais (2023). "A Game of Masks: The Communicative Performance of the Portuguese Populist Far-Right". In Luísa Magalhães; Cândido Oliveira Martins (eds.). Masks and Human Connections: Disruptive Meanings and Cultural Challenges. Springer Nature. p. 88. ISBN 9783031166730.
  36. João Carvalho (2022). "Portugal: From Exception to the Epicentre". In Kennet Lynggaard; Mads Dagnis Jensen; Michael Kluth (eds.). Governments' Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Europe: Navigating the Perfect Storm. Springer Nature. p. 69. ISBN 9783031141454.
  37. ^ Enrico Borghetto; Marco Lisi (2020). "Legislative activities before and after the Great Recession". In Marco Lisi; André Freire; Emmanouil Tsatsanis (eds.). Political Representation and Citizenship in Portugal: From Crisis to Renewal. Lexington. p. 197. ISBN 978-1-7936-0116-2.
  38. Catarina Santos Botelho; Ana Teresa Ribeiro (7 February 2021). "Portugal – The 2019 I·CONnect-Clough Center Global Review of Constitutional Law". SSRN 3742104.
  39. Elisabetta De Giorgi, ed. (3 February 2021). "The Exceptional Case of Post-Bailout Portugal: A Comparative Outlook". South European Society and Politics. 25 (2): 127–150. doi:10.1080/13608746.2021.1872152. S2CID 231955442.
  40. Jalali, Carlos; Bruneau, Thomas; Colino, Cesar (2020). Portugal Report. Sustainable Governance Indicators. p. 7.
  41. Jorge Martins Rosa; Daniel Cardoso, eds. (2019). "A Construção da Identidade dos Novos Partidos em Páginas Oficiais do Facebook".
  42. Porto Editora – Iniciativa Liberal (partido político) na Infopédia . Porto: Porto Editora. . Disponível em https://www.infopedia.pt/$iniciativa-liberal-(partido-politico)
  43. ^ Sampaio, Gustavo (22 July 2017). ""Os liberais não querem destruir o Estado, querem um Estado forte e eficiente para atuar quando deve atuar"". O Jornal Económico - Notícias, Economia, Política, Empresas, Mercados e Opinião (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  44. "Há três ou quatro anos? "Quase que era um crime falar de liberalismo"". Notícias ao Minuto (in Portuguese). 28 September 2022. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  45. Torres, Francisco Pimentel (26 September 2019). "Liberalismo e liberdade individual e igualdade perante a lei". VILA NOVA (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 16 September 2023.
  46. Pinto, Sónia (22 December 2022). "'A Iniciativa Liberal vai chegar ao Governo'". SOL. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  47. "Iniciativa Liberal, Livre e Chega. O que defendem os novos partidos?". Dinheiro Vivo. 7 October 2019.
  48. "Iniciativa Liberal. Eles querem ser os "rebeldes responsáveis" do Parlamento". Jornal Expresso.
  49. "Tiago Mayan debate com André Ventura". Mayan 2021.
  50. Dias, Miguel Viterbo. "Iniciativa Liberal quer ex-Primeiro-Ministro da Estónia a pensar a reforma do estado português". Observador.
  51. ""Parece que não sabem que o muro de Berlim caiu e o sistema falhou"". ionline. 6 May 2018.
  52. "Iniciativa Liberal aprova programa político que defende redução de funcionários públicos". www.dn.pt.
  53. "O PARTIDO DE TODOS OS LIBERAIS". Iniciativa Liberal.
  54. "João Cotrim Figueiredo. 'Ninguém da Iniciativa Liberal está à procura de um tacho'". 5 December 2019.
  55. Castro, Carla (May 2023). "Reforma do Sistema de Pensões – é dificil, mas tem de ser". PÚBLICO (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2 May 2023.
  56. seguir, Melissa Lopes-Autor marcado para. "Rui Rocha eleito o novo presidente da Iniciativa Liberal". onovo.pt (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  57. Mariana Lima Cunha; Inês André Figueiredo. "Apupos, "carneirada", "ignorantes" e "paus mandados". O dia em que as fraturas na IL ficaram expostas". Observador (in European Portuguese). Photography by João Porfírio. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  58. Lopes, Melissa (23 June 2023). "Iniciativa Liberal: disputa no núcleo de Lisboa replica luta interna". Jornal NOVO (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  59. ^ Spranger, Paulo (22 January 2023). "Sociais-liberais contra conservadores: há "luta de classes" na IL?". Jornal de Notícias (in European Portuguese).
  60. Gomes, Margarida (4 June 2024). "Dissidentes da IL querem novo partido liberal já para disputar autárquicas de 2025". PÚBLICO (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 June 2024.
  61. "Visão | A barraquinha da Iniciativa Libertária". Visão (in European Portuguese). 13 June 2021. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  62. Pimentel, José Maria (18 October 2019). "Oito desejos para um partido liberal em Portugal". PÚBLICO (in Portuguese). Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  63. "Membros da IL anunciam saída por o partido se ter "tornado numa caricatura"". Diário de Notícias (in European Portuguese). 22 November 2023.
  64. "Antigo líder da ala conservadora da IL anuncia adesão ao Chega". Diário de Notícias (in European Portuguese). 24 November 2023.
  65. "Ex-cabeça de lista da Iniciativa Liberal junta-se ao Chega". Diário de Notícias.
  66. Figueiredo, Inês André. "Iniciativa Liberal, a "startup política". Não têm sedes, são dissidentes de partidos tradicionais e querem ser como Mayan". Observador (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  67. "Iniciativa Liberal. Uma dúzia de outdoors mudaram a vida do 'partido do Twitter'". www.dn.pt (in European Portuguese). 9 October 2019. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  68. "A Criatividade nas Campanhas Políticas: O Caso do Partido Iniciativa Liberal | Autónoma Academy". Autónoma Academy | Escola de Pós Graduações da UAL (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 25 September 2023.

External links

Political parties in Portugal Portugal
Parties represented in the
Assembly of the Republic (230)
Legislative Assembly of the
Azores Autonomous Region (57)
Legislative Assembly of the
Madeira Autonomous Region (47)
European Parliament (21)
Non-parliamentary parties
Categories: