would be ending his 42 years of party membership and would seek to create a new political party. Alliance (2018–2021) On 18 August 2018, it was revealed the new party headed by Santana Lopes was to be called Alliance (). The party underwent the legal registration process with the Constitutional Court and was officially registered on 23 October. Immediately after the official registration, the party started working on the campaign for the 2019 European Parliament election. Santana Lopes had already said, even before the party was registered, that he would not be running in the election, and that its top candidate would be announced in the near future. On 2 December 2018, the party formally announced Paulo de Almeida Sande, a professor of European affairs and advisor of the President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, as its top candidate. While being generally considered to have a profound knowledge of European issues, Paulo Sande lacked recognition next to the general public, and relied heavily on Santana's personal popularity to engage with supporters and potential voters. In March 2019, Santana Lopes said that the party's objective would be to elect at least one MEP, with three being a good result. Paulo Sande fared well in the televised debates, but the party suffered a heavy blow to its campaign when, on 15 May 2019, both Santana and Sande suffered a car crash on the A1 motorway. The two were heading to a campaign rally in Cascais after an event in Coimbra when, between Soure and Pombal, Santana fell asleep and lost control of the vehicle, a Lexus rented in name of his law firm. The car started to slid slowly to the left, hit the central reservation barrier and then veered abruptly to the right, going out of the road and tumbling several times before coming to a standstill in an overturned position. No other vehicles were involved in the accident, but other drivers witnessed it and alerted the emergency services. Paulo Sande was able to get out of the wrecked car by his own means; he tried to release Santana but was unable to help him. He would only be removed from the wreckage by the emergency services, and was transported by helicopter to Coimbra hospital, to where Sande was also taken by ambulance. The accident was reported by several media outlets, which prompted Alliance to immediately suspend its campaign. Paulo Sande, who