  In a representative democracy, some decide in the name of the rest, and these
elected officials are commonly gathered in public assemblies, such as
parliaments, where they discuss policies, legislate, and vote on fundamental
initiatives. A core aspect of such democratic processes are the plenary
debates, where important public discussions take place. Many parliaments around
the world are increasingly keeping the transcripts of such debates, and other
parliamentary data, in digital formats accessible to the public, increasing
transparency and accountability. Furthermore, some parliaments are bringing old
paper transcripts to semi-structured digital formats. However, these records
are often only provided as raw text or even as images, with little to no
annotation, and inconsistent formats, making them difficult to analyze and
study, reducing both transparency and public reach. Here, we present PTPARL-D,
an annotated corpus of debates in the Portuguese Parliament, from 1976 to 2019,
covering the entire period of Portuguese democracy.
