1.
SV PAN OF: crowd inside hall. (2 shots)
0.24

2.
CU ZOOM OUT TO SV speaker.
0.34

3.
SV: crowd listening. (2 shots)
0.38

4.
SV: hall ZOOM INTO SV official platform.
0.56

5.
SV: crowd applauding
1.04



Initials RH/GB/AH/1851



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: The radical left-wing Popular Unity Dynamiting Groups (GDUP) opened their first ever congress in Lisbon on Friday (19 November) without the presence of the party's leader Major Otelo Sarvaiva de Carvalho. Major Carvalho, runner-up in last June's presidential elections, was prevented from appearing by a military ban.

SYNOPSIS: Major Carvalho was implicated in the failed November 1975 left-wing military uprising and the government has adopted a rule to prevent him from attending political rallies. However, his absence didn't deter most party supporters and 2,000 of them attended the opening session of the congress. A message from the Major was read out encouraging his supporters to unite in the fight for a "socialist and egalitarian society."
The GDUP want to set up a workers' and peasant society bypassing parliament, and they are backed by various extreme left-wing parties who are opposed to the Portuguese Communist Party which they regard as revisionist. The mainstay of the GDUP is the Popular Democratic Union (UDP) a party whose support comes from dock workers and labourers. The Party, however, has little nationwide support. It gained only 1.69 percent of the vote in last April's parliamentary assembly.

During the three day congress the GDUP propose to define their statutes and elect a 50 member national committee.