The party was founded on 30 November 1988 when it was recognized by the authorities. Its founder and first secretary-general Abderrahmane Tlili had been a member of the RCD before he founded the UDU in order to gather Arab nationalists, including
Baathists and
Nasserists, in a party that was close to the government. The party publishes a newspaper, entitled
Al Watan. In the
1999 election, the party won seven seats, which it won again in the
2004 election.
In 2009, this increased to nine seats. In the
election for the Constituent Assembly after the
Tunisian revolution of 2011, the UDU failed to win any seats. ==Footnotes==