The party was established on 24 February 1912 as the result of a split in the
Portuguese Republican Party that led to the creation of the PRE, the
Democratic Party and the
Republican Union. It won 26 seats in the House of Representatives and nine seats in the Senate in the
1915 parliamentary elections, emerging as the second-largest faction after the Democratic Party. The party boycotted the
1918 elections, but returned to run in the
1919 elections, in which it won 38 House seats, regaining its place as the second-largest party. After Almeida became
president in 1919, the party merged with the Republican Union to form the
Republican Liberal Party during the same year. ==References==