African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde a guerrilla warfare campaign in cooperation with its fraternal party umbrella group, the CONCP, during the Portuguese Colonial War. By 1973 the PAIGC controlled Guinea-Bissau, while Portugal's own Carnation Revolution in 1974 effectively dissolved the empire, relinquishing Cape Verde within the next year. After the wars of national liberation, the PAIGC established a socialist state within both territories under Amilcar Cabral's brother, Luís Cabral. Following a military coup in Guinea-Bissau that ousted Cabral in November 1980, the Cape Verde portion of the party became the PAICV in January 1981; it was headed by the President of Cape Verde, Aristides Pereira.
African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde unprecedented as it denounced the Portuguese colonial rule as aggression and occupation. The UN recognition was prior to Portuguese recognition. The conflict had seen 1,875 Portuguese soldiers (out of 35,000 stationed in Portuguese Guinea) and some 6,000 (out of 10,000) PAIGC troops killed by the end of the eleven-year war. After achieving independence, the PAIGC was instituted as the sole legal political party of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, with Luís Cabral becoming President of Guinea-Bissau. A second set of one-party elections were held in 1976 and 1977. Although the PAIGC strove for a union between Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, the