Towards the end of the war, the party established a socialist one-party state, which remained intact until multi-party democracy was introduced in the early 1990s.

[5] The party had six founding members; Cabral, his brother Luís, Aristides Pereira, Fernando Fortes, Júlio Almeida and Elisée Turpin.

The massacre caused a large segment of the population to swing towards the PAIGC's push for independence, although the Portuguese authorities still considered the movement to be irrelevant, and took no serious action in trying to suppress it.

However, the massacre convinced the PAIGC leadership to resort to armed struggle against the Portuguese, and in September 1959 the party established a new headquarters in Conakry in neighbouring Guinea.

Guerrilla warfare was largely concentrated to the mainland Guinea, however, as logistical reasons prevented an armed struggle on the Cape Verde islands.

[8] The party also founded a Pilot School in Conakry in this period, led by Lilica Boal from 1969 onward, with the goal of educating young fighters and war orphans.

Spínola began a massive construction campaign, building schools, hospitals, new housing and improving telecommunications and the road system, in an attempt to gain public favour in Guinea.

[8] However, in 1970, the FAP began to use similar weapons to those the US was using in the Vietnam War: napalm and defoliants, the former to destroy guerrillas when they could find them, the latter to decrease the number of ambushes that occurred when they could not.

[11] Later in the year independence was unilaterally declared on 24 September 1973 and was recognized by a 93–7 UN General Assembly vote in November,[12] unprecedented as it denounced the Portuguese colonial rule as aggression and occupation.

Vieira beat Kumba Ialá of the Party for Social Renewal (PRS) in the run-off, while the PAIGC won 62 out of 100 seats in the National People's Assembly with 46% of the vote.

Francisco Benante, the leader of reformists within the party and the only civilian in the transitional military junta, was elected as the President of PAIGC at the end of the congress on 9 September 1999.

In the 2005 presidential election, PAIGC candidate Malam Bacai Sanhá was defeated in the second round by Vieira, who had returned from exile and ran as an independent.

[22][23] PAIGC withdrew its backing for Kabi on 29 February 2008, stating that this was done "to avoid acts of indiscipline threatening cohesion and unity in the party".

[26] Kabi, Cipriano Cassama (considered a dissident within the party and associated with Aristides Gomes), and Baciro Dja also contested the leadership election, but attracted comparatively little support.

[25][26] After Kabi dismissed the directors of customs, taxes and the treasury on 25 July 2008 without notifying the party, the PAIGC decided to withdraw from the three-party stability pact that was signed in March 2007.

Carlos Gomes Júnior was nominated as the PAIGC candidate, and advanced to the runoff alongside Iála, but a military coup in April prevented it taking place.

The party contested the 2023 legislative election as part of a broad coalition, the Inclusive Alliance Platform – Terra Ranka, that included UM, PCD, PSD and MDG and won a majority of the seats.

[30] During the Cold War, the PAIGC received support from the governments of China, Cuba, Soviet Union, Senegal, Guinea, Libya, Algeria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Ghana.