• Candidatura d’Unitat Popular, CUP ~ United People’s Candidacy ~ Candidatura de Unidad Popular
The Candidatura d’Unitat Popular, or CUP (‘United People’s Candidacy’ in English, Candidatura de Unidad Popular in Spanish) is a leftwing Catalan nationalist political party operating chiefly in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia, with a lesser presence in the neighboring Valencian Community.
The CUP competed at the national level for the first time in Spain’s most-recent 10th November 2019 general election, fielding candidates only in the four provinces of Catalonia. Although projected in pre-election polls to win four to five seats in Spain’s 350-member national Congress of Deputies, the party won 244,754 votes for a 1.01 percent share of the total vote, giving it just 2 seats in Congress — insufficient to form its own parliamentary group and placing its deputies in the “mixed group” of those parties with less than five congressional representatives.
The CUP defines its economic platform as socialist and favors the nationalization of all financial institutions, transportation and communication networks. It also favors the withdrawal of an independent Catalonia from the European Union (EU) and from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
The CUP promotes the complete independence of Catalonia from Spain and subscribes to the broad definition of Catalonia as incorporating the Catalan Countries (Països Catalans), which in addition to Catalonia proper include Spanish regions of Valencia and the Balearic Islands, the Catalan-speaking eastern franja or border region of Aragon and the Catalan-speaking region of southeastern France.
Rooted in various left-wing Catalan movements formed in the years immediately following the 1975 death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, the CUP was incorporated as a political party in 1987. The party has been focused throughout its history primarily on assembly-based democratic decision making and building a presence at the local, municipal level in Catalonia.
You can find out more about Catalonia’s Candidatura d’Unitat Popular at the following links online:
Updated as of 12/2019
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