From August 2000, the party performed with the Partido Democrata Cristão (PDC) under the joint leadership of Vicente da Silva Guterres and Arlindo Marçal, the former moderator of the East Timor Protestant Christian Church.
[3] After the Constituent Assembly elections in 2001, Guterres entered East Timor's National Parliament as leader and sole representative of the UDC/PDC.
Guterres has belonged to the Congresso Nacional da Reconstrução Timorense (CNRT) since 2007, while his party wanted to merge with the PDC under its banner.
[5] The ideology of the UDC is based on Christian humanism and the social doctrine of the Catholic Church.
As a political system, they aimed for a multi-party system with a semi-presidential form of government based on the French model in the elections to the Constituent Assembly for independent East Timor, albeit with a strong limitation of the president's powers.