Portugal - GOVERNMENT

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Portugal - Government

ON APRIL 25, 1974, the Portuguese armed forces overthrew the ruling corporative government in a virtually bloodless coup d'�tat. The coup ended a dictatorial regime established by Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and carried on by his successor, Marcello Jos� das Neves Caetano, after 1968. What began, however, as a simple attempt by the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das For�as Armadas--MFA) to replace the government in power and change its policies quickly became not only a political event of his historic proportions, but also a full-scale social revolution.

The Revolution of 1974, as it came to be known, soon involved hundreds of thousands of Portuguese who took to the streets. The highly organized Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Portugu�s--PCP), emerging from exile and the underground, soon joined forces with the MFA. Many far-left groups also participated in the upheaval, as did the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista--PS). Many members of the country's middle class joined the process, organizing in a matter of months political parties not permitted under the old regime.

On the social side, the events that began in the spring of 1974 drew on the deep frustrations of a society and people emerging from half a century of dictatorship, isolation, and backwardness. Children rebelled against their parents, enlisted men against officers, employees against employers, workers against factory owners, and tenant farmers against absentee landlords. There were, in short, two revolutions in Portugal: one was a process of political change that grew from a coup d'�tat that aimed only at changing the governmental structure at the top into a movement that touched every political relationship; the other was a profound social transformation that seemed bent on toppling all existing social relationships.

Portugal's opening to democracy attracted worldwide attention and was closely scrutinized. Portugal was, afterall, not a remote Third World state, but part of Western Europe. It belonged to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and was a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). A full-scale revolution on European soil and the possibility of a strong communist party in power made the United States and Western European countries uneasy.

Eventually, however, the Portuguese revolution played itself out, and moderate forces came to direct the country's affairs. Elections for the Constituent Assembly in 1975 gave mainstream democratic political parties most of the body's seats and allowed the fashioning of the constitution of 1976. That constitution established parliamentary democracy while preserving many of the revolution's radical achievements and pledging a transition to socialism.

Constitutional amendments in 1982 strengthened the powers of the parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, and the prime minister, weakened those of the president, and placed the military under civilian control. Further amendments to the constitution in 1989 erased much of the document's ideological commitment to socialism and permitted the privatization of many of the economic assets nationalized in 1974 and 1975.

Seven national elections between 1976 and 1991 consolidated the place of the new system of democratic government, often called the Second Republic. In addition to the PCP and the PS, two other parties emerged as significant political forces: the Party of the Social Democratic Center (Partido do Centro Democr�tico Social--CDS), a right-wing Christian democratic party, and the Social Democrat Party (Partido Social Democrata-- PSD), a center-right group. Until the national election of 1987, when the PSD won a majority in the Portuguese parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, the parties to the right of the PCP had usually formed coalition governments. None of these governments, however, was strong enough to serve out a four-year legislative period until the PSD government did so in the 1987-91 period. Under the forceful and able leadership of An�bal Cavaco Silva as prime minister, the single-party PSD cabinet was able to meet the challenges posed by Portugal's membership in the European Community (EC). Cavaco Silva led his party to a second majority in the October 1991 parliamentary elections and formed another PSD government, an indication perhaps that the new democracy was taking root.

The country's first president elected according to the terms of the constitution also contributed significantly to the establishment of parliamentary democracy. President Ant�nio dos Santos Ramalho Eanes (1976-86), though of military background, abided by the new constitution and submitted to amendments that reduced his powers and returned the military to the barracks. These actions served the fledgling democracy perhaps even more than his extinguishing the coup of November 1975, the last attempt of the revolutionary left to seize political control. M�rio Alberto Nobre Lopez Soares, the leader of the PS, succeeded Eanes in 1986 and became the country's first civilian president in five decades. Soares was an effective and popular president and easily won a second five-year term in January 1991.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Portugal's democracy was only a decade and a half old, but the transition to democracy seemed to have been highly successful. Although the country had many social and economic problems to solve, the economy had improved noticeably and political stability had been achieved. A free press served the public, a marked contrast to the censorship of the Salazar regime. These developments were testaments that Portugal had at last found a place in the community of Western democratic nations, a remarkable transition from the long dictatorship and the subsequent periods of revolutionary upheaval and government weakness and instability.

<>THE REVOLUTION OF 1974
<> THE GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM
<>POLITICS
<> THE MEDIA
<> FOREIGN RELATIONS

Portugal

Portugal - THE REVOLUTION OF 1974

Portugal's experience with democracy before the Revolution of 1974 had not been particularly successful. Its First Republic lasted only sixteen years, from 1910 to 1926. Under the republic, parliamentary institutions worked poorly and were soon discredited. Corruption and economic mismanagement were widespread. When a military coup d'�tat ended the republic in 1926, few lamented its passing.

The Salazar-Caetano Era

The republic was replaced by a military dictatorship that promised order, authority, and discipline. The military regime abolished political parties, took steps against the small but vocal Marxist groups, and did away with republican institutions. In 1928 it invited University of Coimbra professor Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar to serve as minister of finance. In 1932 he became prime minister. That year marked the beginning of his regime, the New State (Estado Novo).

Under Salazar (1932-68), Portugal became, at least formally, a corporative state. The new constitution of 1933 embodied the corporatist theory, under which government was to be formed of economic entities organized according to their function, rather than by individual representation. Employers were to form one group, labor another, and they and other groups were to deal with one another through their representative organizations.

In reality, however, Salazar headed an autocratic dictatorship with the help of an efficient secret police. Strict censorship was introduced, the politically suspect were monitored, and the regime's opponents were jailed, sent into exile, and occasionally killed.

Portugal drifted and floundered under this repressive regime for several decades. Economic conditions improved slightly in the 1950s, when Salazar instituted the first of two five-year economic plans. These plans stimulated some growth, and living standards began to rise.

The 1960s, however, were crisis years for Portugal. Guerrilla movements emerged in the Portuguese African colonies of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau (formerly Portuguese Guinea) that aimed at liberating those territories from "the last colonial empire." Fighting three guerrilla movements for more than a decade proved to be enormously draining for a small, poor country in terms of labor and financial resources. At the same time, social changes brought about by urbanization, emigration, the growth of the working class, and the emergence of a sizeable middle class put new pressures on the political system to liberalize. Instead, Salazar increased repression, and the regime became even more rigid and ossified.

When Salazar was incapacitated in an accident in 1968, the Council of State, a high-level advisory body created by the constitution of 1933, chose Marcello Caetano (1968-74) to succeed him. Caetano, though a Salazar prot�g�, tried to modernize and liberalize the old Salazar system. He was opposed, however, by a group widely referred to as "the bunker," the old Salazaristas. These included the country's president, Admiral Am�rico Tom�s, the senior officers of the armed forces, and the heads of some of the country's largest financial groups. The bunker was powerful enough that any fundamental change would certainly have led to Caetano's immediate overthrow.

As Caetano promised reform but fell into indecision, the sense began to grow among all groups--the armed forces, the opposition, and liberals within the regime--that only a revolution could produce the changes that Portugal sorely needed. Contributing to this feeling were a number of growing tensions on the political and social scene.

The continuing economic drain caused by the military campaigns in Africa was exacerbated by the first great oil "shock" of 1973. Politically, the desire for democracy, or at least a greater opening up of the political system, was increasing. Social tensions mounted, as well, because of the slow pace of change and the absence of opportunities for advancement.

The decisive ingredient in these tensions was dissension within the military itself, long a bulwark of the regime. Younger military academy graduates resented a program introduced by Caetano whereby university graduates who completed a brief training program could be commissioned at the same rank as academy graduates. Caetano had begun the program because it was becoming increasingly difficult to recruit new officers as casualties from the African wars mounted.

<>Sp�nola and Revolution
<>The Transition to Civilian Rule
<>Consolidation of Democracy

Portugal

Portugal - Sp�nola and Revolution

A key catalytic event in the process toward revolution was the publication in 1973 General Ant�nio de Sp�nola's book, Portugal and the Future, which criticized the conduct of the war and offered a far-ranging program for Portugal's recovery. The general's work sent shock waves through the political establishment in Lisbon. As the first major and public challenge to the regime by a high-ranking figure from within the system, Sp�nola's experience in the African campaigns gave his opinions added weight. The book was widely seen--a correct assessment as it turned out--as the opening salvo in Sp�nola's ambitious campaign to become president.

On April 25, 1974, a group of younger officers belonging to an underground organization, the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das For�as Armadas--MFA), overthrew the Caetano regime, and Sp�nola emerged as at least the titular head of the new government. The coup succeeded in hours with virtually no bloodshed. Caetano and other high-ranking officials of the old regime were arrested and exiled, many to Brazil. The military seized control of all important installations.

Sp�nola regarded the military's action as a simple military coup d'�tat aimed at reorganizing the political structure with himself as the head, a renova��o (renovation) in his words. Within days, however, it became clear that the coup had released long pent-up frustrations when thousands, and then tens of thousands of Portuguese poured into the streets celebrating the downfall of the regime and demanding further change. The coercive apparatus of the dictatorship--secret police, Republican Guard, official party, censorship--was overwhelmed and abolished. Workers began taking over shops from owners, peasants seized private lands, low-level employees took over hospitals from doctors and administrators, and government offices were occupied by workers who sacked the old management and demanded a thorough housecleaning.

Very early on, the demonstrations began to be manipulated by organized political elements, principally the PCP and other groups farther to the left. Radical labor and peasant leaders emerged from the underground where they had been operating for many years. Soares, the leader of the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista--PS) and �lvaro Cunhal, head of the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Portugu�s--PCP) returned from exile to Portugal within days of the revolt and received heroes' welcomes.

Who actually ruled Portugal during this revolutionary period was not always clear, and various bodies vied for dominance. Sp�nola became the first interim president of the new regime in May 1974, and he chose the first of six provisional governments that were to govern the country until two years later when the first constitutional government was formed. Headed by a prime minister, the moderate civilian Adelino da Palma Carlos, the government consisted of the moderate Popular Democratic Party (Partido Popular Democrata--PPD), the PS, the PCP, five independents, and one military officers.

Beneath this formal structure, several other groups wielded considerable power. In the first weeks of the revolution, a key group was the Junta of National Salvation, composed entirely of high-ranking, politically moderate military officers. Working alongside it was a seven-member coordinating committee made up of politically radical junior officers who had managed the coup. By the end of May 1974, these two bodies worked together with other members in the Council of State, the nation's highest governing body.

Gradually, however, the MFA emerged as the most powerful single group in Portugal as it overruled Sp�nola in several major decisions. Members of the MFA formed the Continental Operations Command (Comando Operacional do Continente--COPCON) composed of 5,000 elite troops with Major (later Brigadier General) Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho as its commander. Known universally by his unusual first name Otelo, Carvalho had directed the April 25 coup. Because the regular police withdrew from the public sector during the time of revolutionary turmoil and the military was somewhat divided, COPCON became the most important force for order in the country and was firmly under the control of radical left-wing officers.

Sp�nola formed a second provisional government in mid-July with army Colonel (later General) Vasco Gon�alves as prime minister and eight military officers along with members of the PS, PCP, and PPD. Sp�nola chose Gon�alves because he was a moderate, but he was to move increasingly to the left as he headed four provisional governments between July 1974 and September 1975. Sp�nola's position further weakened when he was obliged to consent to the independence of Portugal's African colonies, rather than achieving the federal solution he had outlined in his book. Guinea-Bissau gained independence in early September, and talks were underway on the liberation of the other colonies. Sp�nola attempted to seize full power in late September but was blocked by COPCON and resigned from office. His replacement was the moderate General Francisco de Costa Gomes. Gon�alves formed a third provisional government with heavy MFA membership, nine military officers in all, and members of the PS, PCP, and PPD.

In the next year, Portuguese politics moved steadily leftward. The PCP was highly successful in placing its members in many national and local political and administrative offices, and it was consolidating its hold on the country's labor unions. The MFA came ever more under the control of its radical wing, and some of its members came under the influence of the PCP. In addition, smaller, more radical left-wing groups joined with the PCP in staging huge demonstrations that brought about the increasing adoption of leftist policies, including nationalizations of private companies.

An attempted coup by Sp�nola in early March 1975 failed, and he fled the country. In response to this attack from the right, radical elements of the military abolished the Junta of National Salvation and formed the Council of the Revolution as the country's most powerful governing body. The council was made responsible to a 240-member radical military parliament, the Assembly of the Armed Forces. A fourth provisional government was formed, more radical than its predecessor, and was headed by Gon�alves, with eight military officers and members of the PS, PCP, PPD, and Portuguese Democratic Movement (Movimento Democr�tico Portugu�s--MDP), a party close to the PCP.

The new government began a wave of nationalizations of banks and large businesses. Because the banks were often holding companies, the government came after a time to own almost all the country's newspapers, insurance companies, hotels, construction companies and many other kinds of businesses, so that its share of the country's gross national product (GNP) amounted to 70 percent.

Portugal

Portugal - The Transition to Civilian Rule

Elections were held on April 25, 1975, for the Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution. The PS won nearly 38 percent the vote, while the PPD took 26.4 percent. The PCP, which opposed the elections because its leadership expected to do poorly, won less than 13 percent of the vote. A democratic right-wing party, the Party of the Social Democratic Center (Partido do Centro Democr�tico Social--CDS), came in fourth with less than 8 percent. Despite the fact that the elections took place in a period of revolutionary ferment, most Portuguese voted for middle-class parties committed to pluralistic democracy.

Many Portuguese regarded the elections as a sign that democracy was being effectively established. In addition, most members of the military welcomed the beginning of a transition to civilian democracy. Some elements of the MFA, however, had opposed the elections, agreeing to them only after working out an agreement with political parties that the MFA's policies would be carried out regardless of election results.

Following the elections came the "hot summer" of 1975 when the revolution made itself felt in the countryside. Landless agricultural laborers in the south seized the large farms on which they worked. Many estates in the Alentejo were confiscated- -over 1 million hectares in all--and transformed into collective farms. In the north, where most farms were small and owned by those who worked them, such actions did not occur. The north's small farmers, conservative property-owners, violently repulsed the attempts of radical elements and the PCP to collectivize their land. Some farmers formed right-wing organizations in defense of private landownership, a reversal of the region's early welcoming of the revolution.

Other revolutionary actions were met with hostility, as well. In mid-July, the PS and the PPD withdrew from the fourth provisional government to protest antidemocratic actions by radical military and leftist political forces. The PS newspaper Rep�blica had been closed by radical workers, causing a storm of protest both domestically and abroad. The PS and other democratic parties were also faced with a potentially lethal threat to the new freedom posed by the PCP's open contempt for parliamentary democracy and its dominance in Portugal's main trade union, Intersindical, or as it came to be known in 1977, the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers-National Intersindical (Confedera��o Geral dos Trabalhadores PortuguesesIntersindical Nacional--(CGTP-IN).

The United States and many West European countries expressed considerable alarm at the prospect of a Marxist-Leninist takeover in a NATO country. United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told PS leader Soares that he would probably be the "Kerensky [the Russian social-democratic leader whose short-lived rule was the prelude to a Bolshevik takeover] of Portugal." The result of these concerns was an influx of foreign financial aid into Portugal to shore up groups committed to pluralist parliamentary democracy.

By the time of the "hot summer" of 1975, several currents could be seen within the MFA. A moderate group, the Group of Nine, issued a manifesto in August that advocated nonaligned socialism along the lines of Scandinavian social democracy. Another group published a manifesto that criticized both the Group of Nine and those who had drawn close to the PCP and singled out Prime Minister Gon�alves for his links to the communists. These differences of opinion signaled the end of the fifth provisional government, in power only a month, under Gon�alves in early September. Gon�alves was subsequently expelled from the Council of the Revolution as this body became more moderate. The sixth provisional government was formed, headed by Admiral Jos� Baptista Pinheiro de Azevedo; it included the leader of the Group of Nine and members of the PS, the PPD, and PCP. This government, which was to remain in power until July 1976, when the first constitutional government was formed, was pledged to adhere to the policies advocated by MFA moderates.

Evolving political stability did not reflect the country as a whole, which was on the verge of anarchy. Even the command structure of the military broke down. Political parties to the right of the PCP became more confident and increasingly fought for order, as did many in the military. The granting of independence to Mozambique in September 1975, to East Timor in October, and to Angola in November meant that the colonial wars were ended. The attainment of peace, the main aim of the military during all these months of political upheaval, was thus achieved, and the military could begin the transition to civilian rule. The polling results of the April 1975 constituent assembly elections legitimized the popular support given to the parties that could manage and welcome this transition.

An attempted coup by radical military units in November 1975 marked the last serious leftist effort to seize power. They were blocked, however, on November 25 after Colonel Ant�nio dos Santos Ramalho Eanes declared a state of emergency. The revolutionary units were quickly surrounded and forced to surrender, about 200 extreme leftists were arrested, and COPCON was abolished. The glamour of revolutionary goals had faded somewhat, and people returned to their jobs and daily routines after eighteen months of political and social turmoil. A degree of compromise among competing political visions of how the new state should be organized was reached, and the constitution of 1976 was proclaimed on April 2, 1976. Several weeks later, on April 25, elections for the new parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, were held.

These elections could be said to be the definitive end of a period of revolution. Moderate democratic parties received most of the vote. Revolutionary achievements were not discarded, however. The constitution pledged the country to realize socialism. Furthermore, the constitution declared the extensive nationalizations and land seizures of 1975 irreversible. The military supported these commitments through a pact with the main political parties that guaranteed its guardian rights over the new democracy for four more years.

Portugal

Portugal - Consolidation of Democracy

The first elections for the new parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, were won by the PS. It took 36.7 percent of the vote, compared with the 25.2 percent for the PDP, 16.7 percent for the CDS, and 15.2 percent for the PCP. Elections for the presidency were held in June and won easily by General Eanes, who enjoyed the backing of parties to the right of the communists, the PS, the PPD, and the CDS.

Although the PS did not have a majority in the Assembly of the Republic, Eanes allowed it to form the first constitutional government with Soares as prime minister. It governed from July 23, 1976, to January 30, 1978. A second government, formed from a coalition with the CDS, lasted from January to August of 1978 and was also led by Soares. The PS governments faced enormous economic and social problems such as runaway inflation, high unemployment, falling wages, and an enormous influx of Portuguese settlers from Africa. Failure to fix the economy, even after adopting a painful austerity program imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), ultimately forced the PS to relinquish power. However, the PS could be seen as having been successful in that it governed Portugal democratically for two years and helped thereby to consolidate the new political system. After the collapse of the PS-CDS coalition government in July 1978, President Eanes formed a number of caretaker governments in the hope that they would rule until the parliamentary elections mandated by the constitution could be held in 1980. There were, therefore, three short-lived governments appointed by President Eanes. These were led by Prime Minister Alfred Nobre da Costa from August 28, to November 21, 1978; Carlos Mota Pinto from November 21, 1978, to July 31, 1979; and Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo (Portugal's first woman prime minister) from July 31, 1979, to January 3, 1980.

The weakness of these governments and the failure of the PS and the PPD, now renamed the Social Democrat Party (Partido Social Democr�ta--PSD), to form a coalition government forced President Eanes to call for interim elections to be held in December 1979. Francisco S� Carneiro, the dynamic leader of the PSD and a fierce personal rival of Soares, put together a coalition of his own PSD along with the CDS, the Popular Monarchist Party (Partido Popular Mon�rquico--PPM), and another small party to form the Democratic Alliance (Alian�a Democr�tica- -AD). The AD downplayed its intentions to revise the constitution to reverse the nationalizations and land seizures of the mid- 1970s and advocated a moderate economic policy. The coalition won 45.2 percent of the vote in the elections, or 128 seats, for a majority of 3 in the 250-seat assembly. The PS, which had also formed an electoral coalition with several small left-wing groups, suffered a drubbing and won only 27.4 percent, a large drop compared with 1976 results. The PCP, in coalition with another left-wing party, gained slightly.

S� Carneiro became prime minister in January 1980, and the tenor of parliamentary politics moved to the right as the government attempted to undo some of the revolution's radical reforms. The powers conferred on the presidency by the constitution of 1976 enabled President Eanes to block the AD's centrist economic policies. For this reason, the AD concentrated on winning enough seats in the October 1980 elections to reach a two-thirds majority to effect constitutional change and on electing someone other than Eanes in the presidential elections of December 1980.

Portuguese voters approved of the movement to the right, and in the parliamentary elections the AD coalition increased the number of its seats to 134, while the PS held steady at 74 seats and the PCP lost 6 seats for a total of 41. The AD's win was not complete, however, because President Eanes was easily reelected in December. In contrast to the election of 1976, when Eanes was supported by the PS and parties to its right, he was backed in 1980 by the PS, the PCP, and other left-wing parties. Voters admired Eanes for his integrity and obvious devotion to democracy. His election, however, made constitutional change less certain because the AD did not have by itself the required two- thirds majority. The AD also suffered a serious loss when its dynamic leader, S� Carneiro, died in a plane crash just two days before the presidential election. His successor was Franciso Pinto Balsem�o, the founder and editor of the Expresso newspaper.

The AD coalition remained in power until mid-1983, forming two governments with Balsem�o as prime minister. In combination with the PS, which also desired fundamental changes in the political system, the AD was able to revise the constitution. Amendments were passed that enhanced the power of the prime minister and the Assembly of the Republic at the expense of the president and the military. The revised constitution was promulgated in September 1982.

Although the AD government had achieved its main objective of amending the constitution, the country's economic problems worsened, and the coalition gradually lost popular support. Balsem�o also tired of the constant political skirmishing needed to hold the AD together and resigned in December 1982. Unable to choose a successor, the AD broke apart. Parliamentary elections in April 1983 gave the PS a stunning victory that increased its parliamentary seats to 101. After long negotiations, the PS joined with the PSD to form a governing coalition, the Central Bloc (Bloco Central), with Soares as prime minister.

The Central Bloc government was fragile from its beginning and lasted only two years. Faced with serious and worsening economic problems, the government had to adopt an unpopular austerity policy. Administrative and personality difficulties made relations within the government tense and resulted in bitter parliamentary maneuvers. Overshadowing these difficulties was the upcoming presidential election in early 1986. Soares made clear his ambition to succeed Eanes, who, according to the constitution, was not allowed to seek a third consecutive term. A split within the PSD over its presidential candidate ended the coalition government in June 1985.

In new assembly elections held in October 1985, the PS, blamed by the public for the country's severe economic problems, such as a 10 percent fall in wages since 1983, suffered serious losses and lost almost half its seats in the Assembly of the Republic. The PCP's electoral coalition lost six seats; the PSD won thirteen more seats because of new leadership; and the CDS lost almost a third of its seats. The big winner was a party formed by supporters of President Eanes, the Party of Democratic Renovation Party (Partido Renovador Democr�tico--PRD), which, although only months old, won nearly 18 percent of the vote and forty-five seats. The party's victory stemmed from the high regard Portuguese voters had for President Eanes.

No party emerged from the October 1985 elections with anything even close to an absolute majority. Hence, the 1985-87 period was unstable politically. The new head of the PSD, economist An�bal Cavaco Silva, as prime minister headed a minority PSD government that managed to survive for only seventeen months. Its success was attributed partly to support from the PRD, which as a young party wished to establish itself, although it was a motion of censure presented by this party in the spring of 1987 that eventually brought the government down. Cavaco Silva also benefited from the internal dissension of other parties.

The presidential election of 1986 did not yield a winner in the first round. The candidate of the CDS and the PSD, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, won 46.3 percent of the vote compared with 25.4 percent for M�rio Soares. Freitas do Amaral, the candidate of a united right, profited from the left's mounting of three candidates. In the two-candidate runoff election in mid-February, Soares won with 51.3 percent of the vote, getting the support of most left-wing voters. The PCP supported him as the lesser of two evils, even though Soares repeatedly reminded voters that he, perhaps more than anyone else, had prevented the communists from coming to power in the mid-1970s.

Cavaco Silva came to have full control of his party, the PSD. As prime minister, he governed boldly and pushed, through his influence in the parliament, for a liberalization of the economy. He was fortunate in that external economic trends and the infusion of funds from the European Community (EC) after Portugal became a member in 1986 enlivened the country's economy and began to bring an unaccustomed prosperity to Portuguese wage earners. Confident therefore that his party could win in parliamentary elections, Cavaco Silva maneuvered his political opponents into passing a vote of censure against his government in April 1987. Instead of asking for a new government composed of a variety of parties on the left, President Soares called for elections in July.

Cavaco Silva had judged the political situation correctly. The PSD won just over 50 percent of the vote, which gave it an absolute majority in the parliament, the first single-party majority since the restoration of democracy in 1974. The strong mandate would enable Cavaco Silva to put forward a more clearly defined program and perhaps govern more effectively than his predecessors. The emergence of a single-party government supported by a parliamentary majority was for many observers the coming of age of Portuguese democracy.

Portugal

Portugal - THE GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM

Portugal made remarkable political progress after 1974. It replaced the authoritarian-corporatist regime of Salazar, and, as of the beginning of the 1990s, the country appeared to have successfully made the transition to democracy. Although political and governmental problems remained, the government was popularly elected, it functioned according to the constitution, and, since the mid-1980s, had done so with notable stability. The successful transition to democracy in the Iberian Peninsula since the mid1970s (in Spain, as well as in Portugal) may be thought of as one of the most significant political transformations of the late twentieth century.

Constitutional Development

Portugal is governed under the constitution of 1976 whose preliminary drafting was largely completed in 1975, then finished and officially promulgated in early 1976. At the time the constitution was being drafted, a democratic outcome was still uncertain in the midst of the revolution. Even after a leftist coup had been put down in November 1975, it was not known if the armed forces would respect the assembly and allow work on the constitution to go forward. The MFA and leftist groups pressured and cajoled the assembly, and there was much discussion of establishing a revolutionary and socialist system of government. Moreover, not all of the assembly's members were committed to parliamentary democracy. The membership was intensely partisan, with some 60 percent of the seats occupied by the left.

After great struggle, the Constituent Assembly eventually adopted a constitution that provided for a democratic, parliamentary system with political parties, elections, a parliament, and a prime minister. The document also established an independent judiciary and listed a number of human rights. Although relatively few of these provisions are exceptional, some of the constitution's features are noteworthy; including its ideological content, its provision for the role of the military, and its dual presidential-parliamentary system.

Until the constitutional revisions of 1982 and 1989, the constitution was a highly charged ideological document with numerous references to socialism, the rights of workers, and the desirability of a socialist economy. It severely restricted private investment and business activity. Many of these articles were advanced by PCP representatives in the Constituent Assembly, but they were also advocated by members of the PS, who at that time, for electoral reasons, were seeking to be as revolutionary as the far left. The resulting document proclaimed that the object of the republic was "to ensure the transition to socialism." The constitution also urged the state to "socialize the means of production and abolish the exploitation of man by man," phrases that echoed Marx's Communist Manifesto. Workers' Committees were given the right to supervise the management of enterprises and to have their representatives elected to the boards of state-owned firms. The government, among many admonitions along the same vein, was to "direct its work toward the socialization of medicine and the medicopharmaceutical sectors."

Next, the military was given great political power through the role given by the constitution to the MFA-controlled Council of the Revolution that, in effect, made the MFA a separate and almost co-equal branch of government. The council was to be an advisory body to the president (who was at first likely to come from the military itself), and would function as a sort of constitutional court to ensure that the laws passed by parliament were in accord with the MFA's desires and did not undermine the achievements of the revolution. The council was also to serve as a high-level decision-making body for the armed forces themselves. The council was a concession to the MFA for allowing the Constituent Assembly to sit and promulgate a new "basic law." Some of the Portuguese left, especially the PCP, supported the idea in the hope that it would continue to enjoy MFA support even if it lost ground with the electorate.

The final innovative feature of the constitution was that it provided for a system of government that was both presidential and parliamentarian. The Constituent Assembly favored two centers of power in order to avoid both the dangers of an excessively strong executive, as was the case during the Salazar period, and the weaknesses of parliamentary instability, as was the case in the First Republic.

The constitution was controversial from the start. It was widely seen in political circles as a compromise document in that all participants in its drafting had been able to incorporate in it provisions they found vital. The constitution's parliamentary sections had the support of the PS, the PSD, and the CDS; its socialistic content had the support of the PCP and its allies and the PS.

Even before the constitution became law, politicians had agreed to change some provisions after the five-year period in which changes were prohibited. Objections to the document centered on its ideological content, its economic restrictions, and its recognition of a military role in the governance of the country. The CDS, the party furthest to the right among those which had participated in the document's drafting, refused to ratify it. However, the party agreed to abide by it in the interim.

By the early 1980s, the political climate was ripe for constitutional reform. The center-right coalition AD, formed by the PSD, the CDS, and the monarchist party, the PPM, was in power; the PS had been voted out of office, and the PCP was politically isolated. The first amendments, enacted in 1982, dealt with the constitution's political arrangements. Although many of the economic provisions of the constitution had been not been implemented and were, in effect, ignored, there were not yet enough votes to reach the required two-thirds majority needed for their amendment.

The 1982 amendments were enacted through the combined votes of the AD and the PS. This combination of center-right and center-left political forces managed to end the military's control of Portuguese politics. It abolished the Council of the Revolution, controlled by the military, and replaced it with two consultative bodies. One of these, the Higher Council of National Defense, was limited to commenting on military matters. The other, the Council of State, was broadly representative of the entire country and did not have the power to prevent government and parliamentary actions by declaring them unconstitutional. Another amendment created a Constitutional Court to review the constitutionality of legislation. Because ten of its thirteen judges were chosen by the Assembly of the Republic, it was under parliamentary control. Another important change reduced the president's power by restricting presidential ability to dismiss the government, dissolve parliament, or veto legislation.

Despite these amendments, centrists and conservatives continued to criticize the constitution as too ideological and economically restrictive. Hence, the constitution was amended again in 1989. Many economic restrictions were removed and much ideological language eliminated, while governmental structures remained unchanged. The most important change enabled the state to privatize much of the property and many of the enterprises nationalized during the mid-1970s.

Further amendments were to become possible in 1994. Political scientists speculated that the electoral system might be amended so that Portuguese living abroad could vote in presidential elections, a change that had long been sought. Another change could be the introduction of the concept of the "constructive vote of no confidence" used in Germany to help shore up minority governments. This parliamentary provision would permit a government to remain in place despite a vote of no confidence if the parliament could not form an alternative government and would prevent purely negative majorities from destroying a government. As of the early 1990s, a Portuguese government that received a vote of no confidence had to resign.

<> The Presidency
<> The Council of State
<> The Prime Minister
<> The Council of Ministers
<> The Assembly of the Republic
<> The Judiciary
<> Civil Service
<> Local Government
<> Autonomous Regions and Macau
<> The Electoral System

Portugal

Portugal - The Presidency

Although Portugal's government includes a parliament, an assembly, and a cabinet needing parliamentary support, its president has considerable power. As noted above, this dual system was a response to the Portugal's experiences with parliamentary instability and dictatorship. Yet, the extent of the president's power, even after the 1982 revision of the constitution, was not always clear. As a result, at times the relationships among the main institutions of the Portuguese system remained somewhat ambiguous.

The president is elected by majority vote in nationwide balloting. The term of office is five-years, and no president may serve more than two consecutive terms. Real power is vested in the office of the president, who is not merely a symbol of national unity, but rather the chief of state. In times of national crisis, presidents can make or unmake governments, and even in normal times (for example, when the government is weak and no party has a majority) they can exercise considerable influence behind the scenes.

According to the terms of the 1989 revised edition of the constitution, the president's powers and duties include acting as supreme commander of the armed forces, promulgating laws, declaring a state of siege, granting pardons, submitting legislation to the Constitutional Court for approval, making many high appointments, and, when needed, removing high officials from their posts. He also calls elections, convenes special sessions of the Assembly of the Republic, dissolves this body in accordance with law, and appoints the prime minister.

The 1982 amendments to the constitution reduced the powers of the presidency somewhat, mainly by specifying the periods in which presidents may not dissolve the assembly (during the first six months after its election, in the last six months of his term, and during a state of siege or an emergency) and stipulating when they may dismiss a government ("only when this becomes necessary to secure the regular functioning of the democratic institutions"). The presidential veto power was reduced in that a simple majority in the assembly can override presidential vetoes. The former power of pocket veto was also abolished. According to the 1982 amendments, the president must either accept legislation or reject it.

The presidency was intended for a national figure of great prestige and ideally one above partisan politics. As of the early 1990s, Portugal had had only two presidents since the constitution was promulgated in 1976. General Eanes was elected in 1976 and easily reelected to a second term in 1980. In 1986 PS leader Soares was elected to the presidency, but only in the runoff election after he gained the support of the PCP and the PSD. In January 1991, he easily won reelection for a second term.

These two men were genuinely popular presidents because of their statesmanlike qualities and their obvious devotion to their country's welfare. General Eanes was widely regarded as the man who made possible Portugal's transition to centrist democracy after the tumult of the revolution. He was politically moderate and a conciliator who remained apart from the country's contending factions. In Portugal's democratic transition, Soares was also seen as a heroic figure who had fought tenaciously first against the Salazar regime, enduring both imprisonment and exile, and later against communist rule. He was also the country's first civilian president since the First Republic.

Portugal

Portugal - The Council of State

The Council of State, which in the 1982 constitutional reform replaced the Council of the Revolution, functions as a high-level advisory body to the president. Its members consist of the president of the Assembly of the Republic, the prime minister, the president of the Constitutional Court, the ombudsman, the chairpersons of the regional governments, former presidents, five citizens appointed by the president, and five persons elected by the Assembly of the Republic.

The council was a broadly consultative group with deep roots in Portuguese history. It was a kind of throwback to an earlier Portuguese concept of corporative, regional, or functional representation. However, it had no executive power and in recent times had been called into its advisory capacity only rarely. As a result, membership on it had come to be mainly honorary.

Portugal

Portugal - The Prime Minister

The prime minister of Portugal heads the government and manages the nation's affairs on a daily basis. The prime minister chooses or approves cabinet ministers and directs or coordinates their actions. The office thus differs from that in Britain, where the prime minister is the first among equals. Moreover, the entire cabinet bears responsibility for its actions, not the prime minister alone. The prime minister also directs the operations of the armed forces, although the president is formally the commander in chief. In other matters as well, the prime minister is autonomous, and the president has no right to direct the prime minister's policies.

Unlike the president, the prime minister is elected indirectly. As in other parliamentary systems, the prime minister is the leader of the largest party in the parliament or the head of a coalition of parties. The prime minister's term may last for up to four years, through an entire legislative period, after which time new elections. However, the prime minister may call earlier elections. The prime minister may ask for a vote of confidence from the parliament, but he could also be ousted by a vote of no confidence or through a leadership change in his own party. If a prime minister proves incompetent, loses support, or fails to provide needed national direction, the president may also request that a new government be formed.

In the ten years following the Revolution of 1974, Portugal was governed by nearly a dozen weak and short-lived governments, but the number of prime ministers was not large because all but two of them headed more than one cabinet. After mid-1985, however, the political system attained a greater stability when An�bal Cavaco Silva, head of the Social Democrat Party (Partido Social-Democrata--PSD), formed first a minority government and then a majority government that lasted the whole 1987-91 legislative period. After his party won 50.4 percent of the vote in the 1991 national elections, Cavaco Silva formed another government that enjoyed an absolute parliamentary majority.

Portugal

Portugal - The Council of Ministers

The Council of Ministers, or cabinet, is the state's highest executive institution. The council consists of the prime minister and fifteen to eighteen cabinet ministers. Most ministers come from the parliament, but they are not required to do so. In coalition cabinets, the majority of ministers usually belongs to the coalition's largest party, that of the prime minister, and the remaining ministers come from other coalition parties. Once in the cabinet, a member of parliament has to relinquish, at least temporarily, his or her seat in that body.

The Council of Ministers has both administrative and policymaking functions, is responsible for national security and defense affairs, and is in charge of the day-to-day implementation of government policy. In addition, Portugal's cabinet has extensive legislative powers by virtue of its power to pass decree-laws within areas of its responsibility. It can also be granted the right by the Assembly of the Republic to pass legislation in areas of responsibility usually reserved to parliament, its "relatively reserved legislative powers." Because getting a bill through the assembly was often a slow process, the Council of Ministers often made use of this right. The council is responsible both individually and collectively for its actions, first to the prime minister and ultimately to the parliament.

In Portugal, the minister with the greatest power was the minister of finance, who prepared the budget and oversaw the finances of the other ministries. Ministers were assisted by politically appointed secretaries of state, who vacated their positions when their ministers left the council. As allowed by Article 203 of the 1989 revised constitution, a number of ministers sometimes met together and formed what the constitution terms "councils of specialized ministers" to work on matters of mutual concern. They could call on their secretaries of state and civil servants for assistance and could submit the results of their collaboration to the entire cabinet for review.

Additional bodies were later created to assist individual ministers on the council as a whole. In 1984 the Office of Techno-Legislative Support, under the minister of justice, was formed to assist the council in drafting legislation. A number of superior councils assisted ministers with studies and planning. Examples of this kind of body were the Superior Council of Finance or the National Board of Education. In addition to advising ministers, these bodies met with groups being affected by government decisions.

Portugal

Portugal - The Assembly of the Republic

According to the Portuguese constitution, the country's unicameral parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, "is the representative assembly of all Portuguese citizens." The constitution names the assembly as one of the country's organs of supreme authority and in Article 114 of the 1989 revised constitution charges it to exercise its powers both separately and interdependently with the president, the government, and the courts.

The assembly's power derives from its power to dismiss a government through a vote of no confidence, to impeach the president, to change the country's laws, and to amend the constitution. In addition to these key powers, the constitution grants to the Assembly of the Republic extensive legislative powers and substantial control over the budget, the right to authorize the government to raise taxes and grant loans, the power to ratify treaties and other kinds of international agreements, and the duty to approve or reject decisions by the president of the republic to declare war and make peace. The assembly also appoints many members of important state institutions, such as ten of the thirteen members of the Constitutional Court and seven of the sixteen members of the Higher Council of the Bench.

The constitution requires the assembly to quickly review and approve an incoming government's program. Parliamentary rules allow the assembly to call for committees of inquiry to examine the government's actions. Political opposition represented in the assembly has the power to review the cabinet's actions, even though it is unlikely that the actions can be reversed. For example, as few as ten members can request that the assembly ratify the government's decree-laws not belonging to the cabinet's exclusive jurisdiction. As little as one-fifth of the assembly can call for a motion of censure, although an absolute majority of the assembly is required to sustain the censure. Party groups can also call for interpellations that require debates about specific government policies.

The assembly consisted at first of 250 members, but the constitutional reforms of 1989 reduced its number to between 230 and 235. Members were elected by popular vote for legislative terms of four years from the country's constituencies (eighteen in mainland Portugal, one each for the autonomous regions of the Azores (A�ores in Portuguese) and Madeira, one for Portuguese living in Western Europe, and one for those living in the rest of the world). The number of voters registered in a constituency determined the number of its members in the assembly. Constituencies varied greatly in size; as many as three dozen representatives came from the Lisbon district and as few as three from some inland districts. As of the early 1990s, the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira each sent five members to the assembly.

According to the constitution, members of the assembly represent the entire country, not the constituency from which they are elected. This directive was reinforced in practice by the strong role of political parties in regard to members of the assembly. Party leadership, for example, determined in which areas candidates were to run for office, thus often weakening members' ties to their constituencies. Moreover, members of the assembly were expected to vote with their party and to work within parliamentary groups based on party membership. Party discipline was strong, and insubordinate members could be coerced through a variety of means. A further obstacle to members' independence was that their bills first had to be submitted to the parliamentary groups, and it was these group leaders who set the assembly's agenda. The leader of the assembly, its president, was selected from the group leaders.

Assembly sessions were scheduled to run from mid-October to mid-June, but often extended beyond this period because of uncompleted business. When the body was not in session, it was represented by its Standing Committee, headed by the president of the assembly and composed of assembly members chosen to reflect the larger body's political composition. The committee monitored the president and the government and could call for meetings of the entire assembly if necessary.

Much of the assembly's work was done in committees, both permanent and ad hoc. Committee membership was to reflect the assembly party makeup, and members were usually not allowed to serve on more than two committees. The committees examined legislative proposals, most of which came from the government rather than from the assembly itself after a first reading in the assembly. Appropriate witnesses and expert testimony could be called; for certain types of legislation, labor legislation for example, concerned parties had to be heard. Once a committee approved a bill, the bill could receive a second reading and a plenary vote.

The Portuguese parliament did not enjoy much prestige initially. Its efficacy was impeded by the absence of adequate resources and staff and the lack of an efficient infrastructure of committees and subcommittees. This institutional inadequacy buttressed the traditional lack of respect the Portuguese felt for their governing institutions. To the public, the assembly personified democracy's defects in that it was inefficient, quarrelsome, splintered, and patronage-dominated. Its members were frequently seen as putting partisan interests ahead of the interests of the nation or of using their parliamentary positions to enhance their private careers and fortunes. In newspaper editorials and cartoons, parliament was often portrayed as buffoonish, silly, and irrelevant. Polls in 1978 and 1984 found that the Portuguese saw parliament as less important than the president, the prime minister, or the cabinet. It was thus not surprising that at times Portuguese democracy seemed insufficiently rooted. Yet, democracy had survived the unstable period after the revolution, and, despite all its problems, many Portuguese had come to see the Assembly of the Republic as indispensable to its preservation. In addition, reforms of the parliament's organization and practices, as well as increased numbers of skilled and experienced staffers, improved the body's efficiency.

Portugal

Portugal - The Judiciary

The constitution provides for the Constitutional Court; the Supreme Court of Justice and the Supreme Administrative Court, both of which have subordinate courts; and a variety of special courts, including a military court system. It states that the courts are the "organs of supreme authority competent to administer justice in the name of the people." The courts are also designated as "independent and subject only to the law."

The Constitutional Court, called into existence by the constitutional reform of 1982, judges whether legislative acts are legal and constitutional. Among other duties, this court also ascertains the physical ability of the president to carry out presidential functions and to examine international agreements for their constitutionality. Ten of its thirteen members are chosen by the Assembly of the Republic.

The Supreme Court of Justice is designated the "highest court of law," but "without prejudice to the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court," and heads the court system that deals with civil and criminal cases. The courts of first instance (the first courts to try a case) are the municipal and district courts; the courts of second instance are, as a rule, courts of appeal. As of the early 1990s, there were four of these latter courts. The Supreme Court of Justice may serve as a court of first instance in some cases and as an appeals court in others.

The Supreme Court of Administration examines the fiscal and administrative conduct of government institutions. It is not concerned with the state's political decisions or legislation. One section of this court deals with administrative disputes; below it are three courts of first instance. Another section deals with tax disputes and is supported by courts of first and second instance. In addition to these courts, there is a Court of Audit situated in the Ministry of Finance.

Overseeing the nominations, training, promotions, transfers, and professional conduct of Portugal's judges are the Higher Council of the Bench and the Superior Council of the Administrative and Fiscal Courts. These bodies have the right to discipline judges whose conduct does not comply with the law. Also looking after the rights of the citizens is the ombudsman, elected by the Assembly of the Republic for a four-year term. In the early 1990s, this official received some 3,000 complaints a year from Portuguese who felt they had been improperly dealt with by state institutions.

The Portuguese legal and judicial system was based on Roman civil law and was heavily influenced by the French system. It differed from the United States or British legal systems in that a complete body of law was found in the codes. As a result, judicial reasoning was deductive, and prior cases or precedent played little role. A judge was therefore seen mainly as a civil servant whose role was to discover and apply the appropriate law from the codes, not to interpret it or to apply new sociological findings. Hence, judges enjoyed less prestige than in a system based on common law. In addition, law was seen as more fixed and immutable than in the United States, although over time it did change. The historically authoritarian nature of Portugal's system of government was often attributed to this centralized and hierarchical legal system.

Portugal's legal system was considered relatively fair and impartial. During the Salazar regime, the courts were loyal servants of the New State, and high officials of the regime were all but immune from judicial proceedings. After the Revolution of 1974, Salazar-appointed judges were largely removed in favor of revolutionary ones, and certain groups--such as workers and peasants--were often favored over owners and employers before the law. With time, however, the courts came to function with greater impartiality. Most criticism centered on the fact that the courts were slow and overburdened. Long periods of time were often required for the legal system to deal with even routine matters, nor did the courts adequately keep pace with new judicial issues, such as drugs and white-collar crime.

Portugal

Portugal - Civil Service

According to Article 266 of the revised constitution, public administrative authorities shall "seek to promote the public interest, while observing those rights and interests of citizens that are protected by law." Furthermore, the next article states that the structure of public administration shall be such as to avoid bureaucracy, to bring the state's services close to the people, and to involve the people in decision making. Citizens are entitled to be informed of proceedings in which they are directly concerned and of decisions affecting them.

These provisions were a reaction to Portuguese administrative traditions and to the abuses and favoritism of the Salazar era. As of the early 1990s, however, opinions remained divided about whether the Portuguese state was less "bureaucratic" than it had been in the past. The 1970s saw a tremendous increase in the number of persons employed by central and local governments (from 205,000 in 1968 to 550,000 in 1986) and the issuance of many regulations that slowed public administration. To counter these trends, numerous reforms were enacted in the 1980s to streamline government services and make public employees more responsive to the public's needs. For example, civil servants were encouraged to see themselves as servants of the public rather than as wielders of state power. Moreover, many trivial but timeconsuming and otherwise onerous bureaucratic regulations were revoked. An example of this kind of reform was that photocopies rather than original documents could be used when dealing with government offices. Portugal's entry into the EC was also forcing a modernization of the public sector.

Portugal's public employees were classified as either public functionaries, those employed by the national government; or as administrative functionaries, those employed by local authorities. In 1986 national government employees accounted for 83 percent of government employees. Some 70 percent of these government workers were employed by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Ministry of Health. As part of a concerted effort to reduce Portugal's traditional centralization of government, Lisbon's share of public employees of all kinds was reduced from 52.7 percent in 1978 to 44 percent in 1986.

The civil service's cumbersome and unfair classification and pay structures were also reformed during the 1980s. The pay of public employees came to be taxed more than it had been in the past. Career structures were simplified. Care was taken, however, that no public employee receive less pay than under the old system.

The recruitment of new public employees was also newly regulated. Candidates vied for state positions in public competitions. Juries selected candidates in a way that guaranteed fairness. Public employees were also allowed to be members of the main Portuguese labor unions.

Portugal

Portugal - Local Government

Portugal has long been a centralized political system not only in terms of its legal system, but also in terms of its system of public administration. The pattern, like the legal system, derives from Roman law and the French Napoleonic Code. The result was that Portugal's central authorities kept most powers for themselves and administered the country from Lisbon. Local government remained underdeveloped and passive.

The framers of the constitution of 1976 sought to change this pattern of centralization. Article 238 of the 1989 revised constitution states that "local authorities on the mainland shall be the parishes, municipal authorities and the administrative regions." A plan for dividing Portugal into seven administrative regions (five based on the country's major river basins, and one each for the Porto and Lisbon metropolitan areas) had been worked out in the mid-1970s, but in the early 1990s its implementation had not yet been effected. Fear of officials in the capital that they would lose power to local authorities was seen as a principal reason for this delay.

Article 291 of the revised constitution of 1989 states that until the administrative regions have been created, the highest level of subnational government will be the mainland's eighteen districts, administrative divisions established in the nineteenth century. In the early 1990s, these eighteen districts (each bearing the name of its capital) constituted the layer of government between the national government and local government. Portugal was not a federal state, and the districts had no legislative powers. District officials conducted elections, maintained public order, and exercised what the Portuguese termed "administrative tutelage" by monitoring the performance of local government. Each district was directed by a civil governor, who was a political appointee.

The districts did not function as administrative bodies. As a result, most of the national government's activities were carried out by the ministries within territorial divisions that they established and that did not necessarily correspond with those of the districts. The district governor was not seen as occupying a higher position than ministerial officials.

Because the administrative regions envisioned in the constitution had not been established as of the early 1990s, Portugal's local government at that time consisted of 305 municipalities, further subdivided into about 4,000 parishes. Despite its name, a parish had no ecclesiastical functions but merely provided social assistance and maintained voter registration lists. An elected parish assembly met four times a year and chose the parish board, which served as the parish's government. The board drew up the parish's budget, executed the parish assembly's laws, and managed its public business. The size of these bodies was determined by the population of the parish.

Municipalities, like parishes, were classified as urban or rural, except for those of Lisbon and Porto, which were classified as metropolitan areas. A municipality was governed by a municipal assembly, half of whose members were elected every four years and half of whom were the presidents of parish boards operating within the municipality. A municipal assembly met five times a year, and its members were unpaid. A municipality's executive body was the municipal chamber. Its members (aldermen) were elected, served year-round, and were paid. The chamber was headed by a president (mayor). The president of a municipal chamber was the candidate for that body who had received the most votes. Each chamber had a council, composed of representatives from a variety of organizations, which served as a consultative body. The size of these municipal bodies was determined by the number of registered voters within a municipality.

The many tasks managed by a municipality were carried out both by city employees and private firms considered part of the municipal government. Funds to pay for these tasks came both from the national government and local sources (taxes, licensing fees, etc). The constitution stipulates that these local authorities should be financially independent, and plans existed to establish by law a system of local finance that would arrange the "fair apportionment" of public funds between the state and local authorities. As of the early 1990s, however, over 90 percent of the funds used by local government were still national in origin. In addition, the national government was obliged to see that these funds were spent properly, thereby reducing even further the independence of local authorities.

Portugal

Portugal - Autonomous Regions and Macau

The archipelagoes of the Azores and Madeira had long enjoyed a substantial degree of administrative autonomy when in 1976 the new constitution established them as autonomous political regions. According to the constitution, political autonomy was granted in response to the islands' geographical, economic, social, and cultural characteristics and because of "the historic aspirations of the peoples of the islands to autonomy." This autonomy, however, "shall in no way affect the [Portuguese] State's full sovereignty and shall be exercised within the limits of the Constitution."

The constitution grants the autonomous regions a number of powers, among them the power to legislate in areas relating specifically to them, execute laws, tax, supervise local public institutions, and participate in drafting international agreements that affect them. This last provision has meant that Azorean officials have participated in talks between the United States and Portugal about military bases located on their islands.

The national government is represented by the minister of the republic who functions in much the same manner as the president of the republic does on the mainland. The minister has veto powers similar to those of the president. If the autonomous regions' governing organs have acted contrary to the dictates of the constitution, they may be dissolved by the president of the republic.

Each autonomous region has a legislative assembly elected for four-year terms. The d'Hondt method is used to determine voting results. A president heads a regional government composed of regional secretaries, which reflects the party composition of the regional assembly. This government is politically responsible to the regional assembly in the same manner that the national government is responsible to the Assembly of the Republic.

Among other powers, the regional assembly has the right to initiate legislation, review the regional government's budget, and vote motions of censure. A regional government has powers similar to those of the national government, and its members directed a number of regional secretariats that correspond to the mainland's ministries. Local government in the regions corresponds to the mainland's municipalities and parishes.

Macau consists of a peninsula attached to the Chinese mainland and two islands with a total area of about 17 square kilometers. In 1987 its population was estimated at 435,000 persons. Portuguese explorers first reached Macau in the early sixteenth century, and it became a Portuguese colony in 1557. According to an agreement in 1987 between Portugal and China, Macau was to become a "special administrative region" of China on January 20, 1999. Even after this date, however, Macau would be allowed to maintain its capitalist economy, and Portuguese would remain its official language. Until 1999 Macau would remain a Special Territory of Portugal. Although the territory's highest executive official was a governor appointed by the president of Portugal, Macau enjoyed a substantial degree of autonomy and had its own legislative assembly.

Portugal

Portugal - The Electoral System

The constitution states that the people exercise political power through universal, equal, direct, secret, and periodic elections. All citizens over the age of eighteen have the right to vote, and those over the age of twenty-one have the right to hold public office, under conditions of equality and freedom. Portuguese citizens are obliged to register to vote, but voting itself is voluntary. Freedom of association is guaranteed and is defined to include the right to establish or join political parties and "through them to work democratically to give form to the will of the people and to organize political power."

Elections for the president's term of five years in Portugal's semi-presidential system are by popular vote. If a candidate fails to receive an absolute majority on the first ballot, a runoff election between the two leading candidates is to be held within two weeks.

Elections for the four-year legislative terms of the Assembly of the Republic are by proportional representation in each constituency. Portugal uses the d'Hondt method of proportional representation, which is based on the highest average method and favors large parties by awarding them a greater percentage of assembly seats than the percentage of votes they won. Small parties are protected in that there is no minimum percentage of votes they must receive to gain a seat in the assembly. Nonetheless, unless these parties were members of a coalition, they rarely won a seat in the assembly. The d'Hondt method was adopted because it leads to stronger, more stable governments in countries that are deeply divided and have multiple parties.

Municipal elections, which served as a barometer of public opinion on the national government, are held every four years. In contrast to national elections, this schedule was maintained because local governments did not fall. The national parties participated in these elections.

Portugal

Portugal - POLITICS

Portuguese politics operated at several different levels. The constitution and the laws comprised the first level. This formal structure of government, often appeared rigid, legalistic, and impenetrable, especially to outsiders. Yet, these legal and constitutional structures were more obvious and more easily understood than the other levels of the Portuguese system of government.

The second level consisted of political parties and interest groups. Because of its legalistic tradition, a strict separation existed in Portugal between the formal governmental system and the sphere of political parties and interest groups. Portuguese tended to respect their formal system of government but to denigrate political parties and interest groups. As Portuguese democracy flourished through the 1980s, however, political parties and interest groups gained greater acceptance as an integral part of the system of government.

Unlike these first two levels, the third level of Portuguese politics was largely invisible and was the most difficult for outsiders to penetrate and comprehend. This level consisted of the informal connections, family relationships, interpersonal ties, kinships, and patronage networks that were so much the heart of the Portuguese political system. Seldom spoken of or described by the Portuguese, these relationships enabled the Portuguese system to function and to cut through vast layers of red tape.

Many of the informal networks that had long steered Portuguese affairs were severely disrupted by the Revolution of 1974 when many families and extended clans lost their property and their positions. However, many of these networks were rebuilt in subsequent years, and others were formed by the forging of new political and economic relationships. Knowledge of this third level of Portuguese politics was crucial for a full understanding of the formal and the informal dynamics within the Portuguese political system.

<> Political Parties
<> Interest Groups

Portugal

Portugal - Political Parties

As Portugal became democratic after 1974, it also developed a political party system with a full spectrum of parties that ranged from the far left to the far right. During the SalazarCaetano regime, only one party was legal, the National Union (Uni�o Nacional--UN), later renamed the National Popular Action (Ac��o Nacional Popular--ANP). The UN/ANP was dissolved in the first weeks of the revolution, and a great variety of new parties soon replaced it.

Some political parties emerged very quickly because they already existed in preliminary form. Several factions of the old UN/ANP, for example, became separate political parties after the revolution. The socialists and, to a far greater extent, the communists already had underground groups operating in Portugal, as well as organizations in exile. Finally, some opposition elements had formed "study groups" that served as the basis of later political parties.

The party system increased in importance during the Second Republic. Large, strong parties were fostered under the d'Hondt method of proportional representation, and parties soon began to receive state subsidies. The parties' strength was also bolstered by their exclusive right to nominate political candidates and by the strict party discipline they enforced on successful candidates once they entered parliament. By the beginning of the early 1990s, only four parties regularly won seats in the parliament, and two were so much stronger than the others that Portugal seemed on the way to an essentially two-party system.

Far Left

Far-left groups, most importantly the Portuguese Democratic Movement (Movimento Democr�tico Portugu�s--MDP), had considerable influence in the early part of the revolution. Consisting mostly of students and intellectuals, these groups were augmented by leftists from all over the world who flocked to Portugal to witness and participate in the revolution. They often engaged in guerrilla tactics, street demonstrations, and takeovers of private lands and industries. On their own, these groups could mount major demonstrations; in alliance with the PCP, they could be even more formidable. Since the heady revolutionary days of the mid-1970s, however, most of these groups have been absorbed into the larger parties or dissolved. As of the beginning of 1990s, some far-left groups were still active at the universities and in intellectual circles, but they were seen as a fringe phenomenon and lacked their former disruptive capacity.

Portuguese Communist Party

The main party on the revolutionary left in Portugal was the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Portugu�s--PCP). The PCP had a long history of defiance to the Salazar dictatorship, and many of the party's leaders had spent long years in jail or in exile. Party members who remained in Portugal worked underground where they formed associations and organized the labor union Intersindical. The party was strongly Stalinist and Moscow-oriented.

Returning from exile in 1974, the PCP's leaders, many of whom were reputed to be capable and formidable politicians, tried to seize power by means of a coup, allying themselves with revolutionary elements in the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das For�as Armadas--MFA). The party came close to seizing power in 1975 but failed because moderate elements within the armed forces and the political parties to the right of it were committed to Western democracy. Extensive financial aid from Western countries to these parties also contributed to the PCP's ultimate defeat.

The PCP, along with its far-left allies, got 17 percent of the vote in the first democratic election in Portugal in 1975, and for several elections after that it held its position at approximately 12 to 19 percent of the vote. But during the 1980s, as Portugal moved away from the radical politics of the mid-1970s and began to prosper economically, the PCP's popularity declined to less than 10 percent of the vote. The party remained strong in the trade unions, but younger members of the party challenged the old leadership and questioned the party's hard-line Stalinist positions. Some of these young challengers were expelled from the party. The collapse of the communism in Europe, the aging of the party's leadership (the party had been headed by �lvaro Cunhal since 1941) and of its membership, and the party's poor showing in elections indicated that the party would either have to transform itself fundamentally or fade away as a political force.

Socialist Party

The history of the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista--PS) in Portugal dates back to the late nineteenth century. Like the PCP, it was persecuted and forced into exile by Salazar. The party was reestablished in 1973 in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) under the leadership of M�rio Soares, who had opposed the regime as a young man and had been imprisoned for his political activities. Soares returned to Portugal a few days after the coup of April 25, 1974, and the PS began to function openly as a political party. It had both a moderate and a militant wing, but the militancy was tempered by the articulate and politically shrewd Soares.

The PS, as one of the two largest parties in Portugal, has often formed governments. In the revolutionary situation in 1974- 75, the socialists were looked on as the most viable moderate opposition to the PCP. The PS therefore received considerable foreign support, as well as domestic votes, that it might not otherwise have had. It regularly received about 28 to 35 percent of the vote and was in power from 1976 to 1978 and in a governing coalition with the PSD from 1983 to 1985.

In power the PS followed a moderate, centrist program. As the Portuguese electorate became more conservative in the 1980s, however, the party lost support. In the 1985 election, it got only 20.8 percent of the vote, although this percentage improved slightly in the 1987 national elections. The party won the 1989 municipal elections, but despite an impressive improvement in the 1991 national election when it polled 29.3 percent of the vote, it still lagged far behind the PSD. Persistent leadership problems since Soares left the party when he was elected president in 1986 and inept campaigns were seen as causes of the party's secondary position in Portuguese politics. At times the disputes between the moderate and Marxist factions were renewed, but the party as a whole had moved far enough to the right that in the 1991 national election the PS had difficulty distinguishing itself from the PSD on most major issues.

Social Democrat Party

The Social Democrat Party (Partido Social Democrata--PSD) emerged as the somewhat open and tolerated opposition under Caetano in the early 1970s. For a time, the PSD, then known as the Popular Democratic Party (Partido Popular Democrata--PPD), adopted the reformist political doctrines popular during the revolutionary period of the mid-1970s. It was soon overtaken, however, by the PS as the main opposition party, and it moved toward the democratic center. The radical constitution of 1976 was drafted and promulgated with its help, but even then the PSD was committed to its revision.

The PSD's fortunes generally improved as revolutionary fervor waned. In the earliest postrevolutionary elections, the PSD got about 24 to 27 percent of the vote, second to the PS. It had scored well in the conservative north of Portugal but not in the revolutionary south. As the party began to occupy the broad center of the political spectrum under the dynamic leadership of Francisco S� Carneiro, the PSD's electoral support grew. In 1978 the PSD formed an electoral coalition, the Democratic Alliance (Alian�a Democr�tica--AD), with two other parties and came to power in early 1980 with S� Carneiro as prime minister. Since the formation of this government, the PSD remained in government throughout the 1980s and into the first half of the 1990s, either as part of a coalition, in a minority single-party cabinet, or as a majority single-party government.

The AD won the parliamentary election of October 1980, but the coalition's forward movement slowed somewhat after the death of S� Carneiro in a plane crash in December 1980. His successor, Expresso founder and editor Francisco Pinto Balsem�o, lacked S� Carneiro's forcefulness and charisma. The party formed an electoral coalition with the PS in 1983, the Central Bloc, and was in government until 1985 when the coalition ended. For two years, the PSD formed a minority government with its new leader, An�bal Cavaco Silva, as prime minister. In the 1987 national elections, the PSD won the Second Republic's first absolute parliamentary majority, a feat the party repeated in the 1991 elections. By consistently favoring free-market policies, the PSD benefited from Portugal's improved economy after the country joined the EC in 1986 and the electorate's return to a more conservative position after the radical politics of the mid1970s .

Party of the Social Democratic Center

The Party of the Social Democratic Center (Partido do Centro Democr�tico Social--CDS) was a Christian democratic party to the right of the political spectrum. Though not officially a religious party, the CDS was linked to mainly conservative Portuguese Catholicism and most of its officials and followers were Roman Catholic. Unlike some other Christian democratic parties, the conservative CDS did not advocate liberation theology. The party was founded in 1975 by Diogo Freitas do Amaral, a respected politician and a professor of administrative law.

The CDS won 15.9 percent of the vote in the 1976 elections and for a time formed a government with the PS. It increased its power when it formed an electoral coalition with the PSD in 1979 and was in power until the coalition ended in 1983. Since then the party lost much of its electoral support, gaining only a little more than 4 percent of the vote in the 1987 and 1991 parliamentary elections, and seemed consigned to lesser political significance. The strength of the PSD at the polls meant that the CDS was no longer needed to form center-right governments. A decline of the PSD seemed the only opportunity for the CDS to return to power, either with the PSD or with the PS.

Far Right

Since the fall of the Salazar-Caetano regime and as of the beginning of the 1990s, Portugal had not had a strong far-right party. Most of those associated with the old regime were driven into exile during the revolution, and all far-right parties were declared illegal. Some of the prohibitions against right-wing political activities still remained law, although in the 1980s many of those associated with the former regime had returned to the country and a handful had reentered politics. Rather than establishing new right-wing parties, conservatives and supporters of the old regime were most likely to be active politically through the PSD or the CDS.

Popular Monarchist Party

The Popular Monarchist Party (Partido Popular Mon�rquico-- PPM) favored the restoration of the Bragan�a royal family, overthrown in 1910. Their program was complicated, however, by the existence of several competing Bragan�a pretenders to the throne. The PPM stood for a constitutional and limited monarchy similar to the one in Spain. This would mean that the monarch was a ceremonial chief of state, not a ruling head of government. The PPM argued that a monarchy would help unify the government, promote stability, and give the country a single, if mainly symbolic, head. In addition, the PPM campaigned for ecological concerns. Only once, in the 1987 elections for the EC, did the PPM win even 3 percent of the vote. Generally it won less than 1 percent. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, the PPM was part of the AD governing coalition, which consisted mainly of the CDS and the PSD.

Other Parties

Portugal had a number of other, largely personalistic parties that rallied around a single leading personality rather than an issue or program. Most of these were small parties, frequently rising and falling quickly, and they commanded little electoral strength. These personalistic parties were often used as bargaining chips in the larger political arena, where their modest support might be traded for a cabinet post or other position. An exception to some of these rules was the Party of Democratic Renovation (Partido Renovador Democr�tico--PRD), made up of supporters of President Eanes. In the national elections of 1985, the PRD received 17.9 percent of the vote and seemed poised to emerge as a major electoral contender. In the national elections of 1987, however, it got just under 5 percent of the vote. After Eanes himself withdrew from politics, the party faded away, winning only 0.6 percent of the vote in the 1991 elections.

Portugal

Portugal - Interest Groups

Despite the flourishing of democracy since 1974, interest groups were not a significant force in Portugal. Portuguese politics were pluralist but to a lesser degree than in many other countries, especially when compared with the United States. Whereas the United States had over 50,000 interest groups functioning in Washington alone as of the early 1990s, the number functioning in Portugal was probably less than 100.

Armed Forces

The armed forces in Portugal traced their origins back to the armies and military orders of medieval times. The orders were often autonomous from the state, and, because they were formed during the reconquest, may have predated it. Hence, the armed forces came to be thought of--and thought of themselves--as a separate unit in society, independent of any civil authority and perhaps above it. Even at the beginning of the 1990s, the military still had to some extent this sense of aloofness and of ideals of a higher order.

The military was long the ultimate arbiter of Portuguese national politics. The armed forces were drawn into the chaotic, man-on-horseback politics of the nineteenth century. Military cum civilian factions "rotated" (rotativismo) out of national politics with frequent regularity. The armed forces helped usher in the Portuguese Republic in 1910 and ended it in 1926. The military brought Salazar to power and served as an indispensable prop of his dictatorship.

It was the armed forces that overthrew Caetano in 1974 and the MFA that launched the revolution. The MFA took pains to retain special powers by creating the Council of the Revolution, which guaranteed the armed forces the power to prohibit legislation that they saw as harmful to the revolution's democratic achievements. The military agreed, however, that these powers were to be of limited duration.

During the 1980s, the political and social roles of the armed forces diminished. The 1982 constitutional amendments reduced the military's political power by abolishing the Council of the Revolution, thereby ending the military's guardianship over Portuguese politics. The National Defense Law of 1982 put the military completely under civilian control. In addition, the armed forces were significantly reduced in size and budget. On the other hand, Portuguese officers became better educated, more technologically sophisticated, and more professionalized.

By the beginning of the 1990s, the Portuguese armed forces had a social role similar to that of armed forces in other West European countries. Only extreme events could possibly pull Portugal's soldiers back into politics, although like any other interest group they did lobby to protect their interests, benefits, budget, and position in society.

Roman Catholic Church

Like the armed forces, the Roman Catholic Church in Portugal had also declined in influence during the 1980s. The church, along with the military, had been one of the historical corporate units in society, long predating the state and existing parallel to it. As a result, Portugal was historically a Roman Catholic nation. Roman Catholicism was not only the sole religion of the country, but Roman Catholic beliefs also permeated the culture, the legal system, the society, and the polity. Salazar derived many of his corporatist beliefs from the papal encyclicals, and during his long rule the church served as an indispensable pillar of the regime.

In recent decades, however, the church came to play a lesser role in people's lives as society became more secularized. During the 1974-76 period, the church helped turn the population away from the appeals of communism and radicalism, but since those tumultuous years the church has been quiescent politically. The church has, however, expressed itself on some issues, such as the legalization of abortion, on which it felt morally obliged to take a public stance. Polls of Portuguese showed that the church's ranking among main interest groups had fallen from second- or third-most influential to seventh- or eighth-most influential.

Economic Elites

The "oligarchy" was the third of the historical triumvirate of power in Portugal (armed forces, church, and oligarchy) to be in decline. Many of the old oligarchical families traced their origins to the Reconquest. They acquired their land, position, and titles, and eventually peasants and cattle, as the Reconquest drove the Moors farther south, opening up new territories for settlement.

This oligarchy, armed with titles of nobility granted it by the royal family in return for loyalty, dominated Portuguese politics for centuries. But over time, its character changed. In the south of Portugal, the Alentejo, the landowning class became increasingly absentee landlords, leaving managers in charge of its estates and moving to Lisbon. In the north, where smallholdings predominated, many members of the oligarchy became impoverished--or went into businesses like wine making. During the reign of Salazar, members of the elite went into banking, insurance, construction, and similar fields in which they could establish oligopolies and monopolies based on their close ties with the government.

After the Revolution of 1974, this economic elite was stripped of power. Its properties were confiscated, many from the elite were jailed or sent into exile, and the group lost all political power. In addition, members of the elite were barred from participating in politics or from forming political movements of their own by means of the laws forbidding far-right political activity.

As of the beginning of the 1990s, most of the exiles had been permitted to return to Portugal, and those who had spent time in jail were freed. Some of the elite managed to regain their power by taking advantage of the economy's need for financial expertise. But the elite as a whole did not regain its old financial position. Its political influence remained limited, as well, and only one member of the old Salazar regime had been elected to parliament.

Organized Labor

Portuguese trade unionism had a history of militancy and radicalism. Its roots go back to the late nineteenth century when modern industry first appeared. The unions grew during the period of the First Republic, 1910-26, when they enjoyed freedom to organize. It was in this period that Marxist, Bolshevik, Trotskyite, anarchist, and syndicalist ideas were discussed and disseminated. Although the labor movement was small, a reflection of the low level of Portuguese industrialization, it was active and vocal.

During the Salazar-Caetano era, militant unions were abolished, and the labor movement was forcibly subordinated to corporatist controls. Many labor leaders were jailed or sent into exile. Some cooperated with the new corporative system; others organized a militant, communist-controlled underground labor organization. With time this union, Intersindical, was well enough established that the government actually dealt with it almost as if it were a legal bargaining agent.

During the Revolution of 1974, Intersindical, or as it came to be known in 1977, the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers-National Intersindical (Confedera��o Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses-Intersindical Nacional--CGTP-IN), was at last able to function as a legal labor organization, and it expanded rapidly. Controlled by the communists, CGTP-IN was closely associated with the PCP's bid for power and for a time was the only union permitted to function. Soon, however, it faced opposition from the socialist labor organization, the General Union of Workers (Uni�o Geral dos Trabalhadores--UGT). For a time, the communist labor group was overwhelmingly dominant, but during the 1980s the UGT grew in size, especially in the service sector, and by the end of the decade its overall membership was about half that of CGTP-IN. Many other small unions were active at the beginning of the 1990s, most notably those representing highly specialized professions such as airline pilots. There was also a Christian democratic trade union movement.

After 1974 organized labor emerged as a powerful force in Portuguese politics, although its influence waned somewhat after the revolutionary period. Union membership was not high, and as of the early 1990s only about 30 percent of the work force was unionized. The communist-led unions were not able to block the constitutional amendments of 1982 and 1989, which reduced the radical legacy of the revolution. Moreover, some unions backed away from the intense ideological unionism of the 1970s in favor of more limited and practical objectives.

Middle Class

Portugal was long an essentially two-class society consisting of elites and peasants, between which existed a small class of artisans, soldiers, and tradespeople. With the acceleration of industrialization and economic development since the 1950s, this middle class began to grow. It provided the strongest opposition to the Salazar-Caetano regime as it came to prefer democracy and a more open West European society. As a result, the middle class participated strongly in the Revolution of 1974 and the political maneuvering that followed. After the old elites were shunted aside by the revolution and labor organizations lost power the following decade, the middle class emerged as Portugal's most important class.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the middle class constituted some 25 to 30 percent of the population. The most important Portuguese institutions were middle class-dominated: the military officer corps, the Roman Catholic Church, political parties, public administration, the universities, and commerce and industry.

The middle class remained divided on many social and political issues, however. For example, political leadership in Portugal was solidly middle class and spanned all parties from the far left to the far right. The success of the PSD under Cavaco Silva both in parliament and in the election of 1987 was perhaps an indication that Portugal's new socially significant middle class was developing a degree of social cohesion.

The commercial segment of the middle class defended its interests through the PSD and the CDS and also through some large representative organizations. The leading organizations of this type were the Portuguese Industrial Association (Associa��o Industrial Portuguesa--AIP), founded in 1860, the much larger Confederation of Portuguese Industry (Confedera��o da Ind�stria Portuguesa--CIP), founded in 1974, and the Portuguese Confederation of Commerce (Confedera��o do Com�rcio Portugu�s-- CCP), founded in 1977. These organizations, and others like them, met with important labor groups and with government officials and lobbied behind the scenes to better the conditions under which Portugal's new middle class had to work.

Students and Intellectuals

Students and intellectuals in Portugal were long influential out of proportion to their numbers. This influence was a consequence of higher education's exclusivity. The small percentage of the population who passed the difficult university entrance exams was widely respected, and Portugal's lower classes looked up to educated persons as their intellectual and political mentors.

Intellectuals and students were among the leading advocates of a republic in 1910. Although hostile to the republic, Salazar was also an intellectual and recruited so many of his fellow university colleagues into his administration that it was sometimes called a "regime of professors." Much of the opposition to Salazar and Caetano was made up of intellectuals and students who formed the "study groups" that served as the nuclei for what later became political parties. Intellectuals and students were very active in the Revolution of 1974, and, as of the beginning of the 1990s, many intellectuals served in high positions in government and the political parties.

Universities in Portugal were traditionally heavily politicized, especially during the revolutionary upheavals of the 1970s. Socialist, communist, and other far-left groups competed for dominance on the campuses (mainly at the historical universities in Lisbon and Coimbra) and in publishing houses, newspapers, and study centers where intellectuals congregated.

Rising enrollment pressures, the competition of new regional universities and technical institutes, and the desire to find good jobs in the more affluent Portugal of the 1980s sapped the students' enthusiasm for political action. Many preferred to finish their courses and degrees and secure a rewarding professional position rather than to engage in constant political activity. As a result, Portugal's institutions of higher learning became calmer politically; they also became better, more serious universities.

Peasants

Peasants were long the neglected and forgotten people of Portuguese politics. Although the largest group numerically, they were the weakest politically. Nonparticipation was encouraged by Salazar's strategy of keeping the peasants illiterate and apathetic.

The peasants comprised a variety of groups. A basic distinction exists between the conservative peasants of the north who own their small plots of land, and the peasants of the south who have no land, live under conditions of tenancy, and have been receptive to the appeals of radical political groups. The PCP, for example, had quietly organized southern peasants under its banner even during the Salazar era. During and after the Revolution of 1974, the south, especially the Alentejo, was a hotbed of land seizures, radical political action, and strong voting preferences for the PCP.

Since the revolution, however, both the PS and the PSD have made electoral inroads into what were PCP strongholds in the south. The rural areas were once again to some degree depoliticized , although the countryside would never return to the quiescence of decades past, despite the large numbers of farmers and agrarian laborers who migrated to urban areas or went abroad.

Portugal

Portugal - THE MEDIA

During the long Salazar regime, the media operated under strict authoritarian control. The press was heavily censored, radio and television were government-controlled, and writers who violated the regime's guidelines were subject to severe sanctions. Even the lists of books that were requested by readers from the National Library in Lisbon were reviewed by secret police officials. Foreign magazines were similarly inspected before being put on the newsstands, sometimes with whole stories blotted out. The controls and censorship were stifling, leading to a pervasive and boring conformity in the media.

Under Caetano the rules were relaxed somewhat. Some novelists and essayists were able to publish critical and controversial works and get away with it. The press might speak out indirectly, with long analyses of elections in Chile or West Germany, for example, when everyone understood the real topic was the absence of free elections in Portugal. Only the weekly newspaper Expresso was strong enough to test the regime's tolerance with virtually every issue.

After the coup of April 25, 1974, the mass communications media underwent a radical transformation. One of the first acts of the revolutionary government was to abolish censorship. But as the revolution veered to the left, some portions of the media were seized by opponents of the views they expressed. Two of the most celebrated cases involved the closing of the Socialist Party newspaper Rep�blica and the Roman Catholic Church's R�dio Renascen�a.

Government involvement in the media greatly increased when the banks were nationalized. Because most banks owned at least one newspaper, the state found itself the owner of many newspapers. With time, however, the government divested itself of these properties. By the beginning of the 1990s, no newspapers in Portugal were government owned, and the country had a completely free press. Although the state still operated radio and television broadcasting systems, the constitution states that they are to provide equal access to political parties, in or out of power. Large interest groups are also to have access to the state-owned electronic media.

At the beginning of the 1990s, about thirty newspapers were published daily in Portugal. They ranged from excellent newspapers like P�blico, an independent; and the historic Di�rio de Not�cias, a newspaper of record; to sensationalistic crowd-pleasers such as Correio da Manh�. P�blico, founded in 1990, had sections dealing with both Lisbon and Porto and provided perhaps the most national news. Two excellent weekly newspapers filled the place taken in the United States by Time and Newsweek: Expresso, which had fought bravely for press freedom before the revolution; and O Independente, founded in 1988, which included pages enlivened by wicked satires of public figures. In addition to these publications, Portugal had a variety of specialized magazines.

In 1975 all commercial broadcasting facilities except those belonging to the Roman Catholic Church were nationalized. As of the beginning of the 1990s, however, hundreds of private radio stations were in operation, in addition to the large Roman Catholic radio system R�dio Renascen�a. The state broadcasting system was named Radiodifus�o Portuguesa (RDP). Television service was furnished by the state system, Radiotelevis�o Portuguesa (RTP), which broadcast on two channels. At the beginning of the 1990s, however, plans were being made to establish privately owned television in Portugal.

Portugal's film industry was very small. It produced mainly short films and documentaries for local television. Few fulllength films were made in Portugal, and those that were had not found a market abroad. However, a few Portuguese directors, the veteran Manoel de Oliveira and Paolo Rocha, for example, were highly esteemed by film cognoscenti the world over.

Book publishing was more prosperous, within the limits of the local market. Portugal had more than fifty publishing houses. They published books by Portuguese authors but also did a major business in translations of foreign authors. During the mid1970s , works by Marx, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, and other writers on the left dominated the bestseller lists. In the period since, Portuguese readers turned to a greater diversity of authors. The country's relatively high illiteracy rate of about 15 percent and the fact that most Portuguese read little made for a small market. As a result, books were expensive, and printings of even bestselling books were usually limited to 2,000 to 3,000 copies.

Portugal

Portugal - FOREIGN RELATIONS

The Revolution of 1974 did not merely transform Portugal's domestic politics, but led to a transformation of its foreign relations, as well. For centuries Portugal's foreign relations were directed away from Europe, first down the South Atlantic and to Africa, then to Brazil and the Orient. Lisbon's relations with Europe were limited to an alliance dating from 1386 with Britain, another Atlantic country, that was intended to protect it from Spain and any other European power that might threaten Portugal's independence and its vast empire. Over the centuries, much of this empire was lost. Preserving what remained of this empire, the country's African colonies and a few other small entities, became the core of Portuguese foreign policy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Moreover, the Portuguese saw themselves as a people with an "Atlantic vocation" rather than as an integral part of Europe.

Postwar developments for a time buttressed this traditional attitude that Portugal's true concerns and interests lay in the South Atlantic and beyond and away from Europe. Portugal became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) not for what its army could do in Central Europe but for the importance of the Azores as a site for military bases. Other than permitting the United States access to these islands, Portugal's contribution to the alliance was negligible.

The wave of anticolonialism that swept through the Third World after World War II sparked rebellion in Portugal's African colonies. Lisbon's great efforts to quell these struggles for independence intensified the metropole's traditional interest in Africa. In the end, however, Portugal was not strong enough to put down these wars of independence. In fact, the great expenditure of manpower and revenue in the African wars was the main cause of the Revolution of 1974. The revolution brought to power members of the military who were determined to end the fighting, and within a matter of eighteen months Portugal's empire was gone.

Shorn of its colonies, Portugal was forced to concede that its future lay in Europe, a revolutionary change in the country's view of its place in the world. It became a member of the EC in 1986 and enjoyed the benefits and endured the change that this membership entailed. Portugal's most important foreign relationship, its relationship with the United States, changed only in degree, not in kind. In other respects, however, Portugal began a whole new era in its foreign policy.

Foreign Relations with ...
<> Africa
<> Western Europe
<> United States
<>Brazil and East Timor

Portugal

Portugal - Africa

During the 1960s and early 1970s, Portugal waged three colonial wars simultaneously on the African continent. These campaigns hurt the economy, drained morale, and gradually became politically unpopular. The end of the wars in Africa brought independence to the colonies almost immediately. The manner in which independence was granted, however, and the results that were produced proved to be highly controversial.

In his unsettling book, Portugal and the Future, General Ant�nio de Sp�nola had proposed stopping the wars, finding a peaceful resolution, and granting independence to the colonies. But he wanted to maintain good relations with the colonies and to link them with Portugal and possibly Brazil through a Portuguese-speaking Lusitanian confederation of nations that would resemble the British Commonwealth. This proposal was rejected by the radical and more impatient members of the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das For�as Armadas--MFA).

In Guinea-Bissau, after brief negotiations and a cease-fire, Portugal granted independence to its former colony and turned power over to the Marxist African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (Partido Africano pela Independ�ncia de Guin� e Cabo Verde--PAIGC). Cape Verde also became independent but did not become part of Guinea-Bissau. In the much larger territory of Mozambique, Portugal turned over the reins of government to the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frente de Liberta��o de Mo�ambique--FRELIMO), another Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group. And in Angola, Portugal's most valuable African colony, power was given to the similarly Marxist-Leninist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Liberta��o de Angola--MPLA) which, among the three factions fighting for independence, was the only one allied with the Soviet Union. The smaller colony of S�o Tom� and Pr�ncipe also became independent.

The haste with which independence was granted and the simple turning of power over to the very Marxist-Leninist elements Portugal had been fighting, without any further guarantees, had a number of serious consequences. Hundreds of thousands of Portuguese settlers were stranded, many of whom had lived in the colonies for generations. They lost their homes, land, and positions. Most of them returned to Portugal, where many lived in squalid conditions and added to the country's unemployment problems. Their departure left the African colonies without the teachers, educators, managers, and other trained personnel needed to make a successful transition to independence. Plagued by continuing civil wars and violence, political conditions and living standards in the newly independent states deteriorated.

Portugal's relations with these former colonies long remained strained, for they felt they had been abandoned by the mother country. With time, however, relations improved, trade resumed, Portuguese educators and technicians were welcomed back, and new ties among the Portuguese-speaking nations began to be forged. Portugal served as a useful intermediary in arranging agreements to reduce conflicts in Angola and Mozambique. In 1984, for example, Portugal sponsored the Nkomati Accords between Mozambique and South Africa by which the two latter countries agreed to stop supporting guerrilla groups in each other's territory. The three countries later agreed to manage the giant Cahora Bassa hydroelectric power plant for the benefit of all. Although Portugal would no longer play a large role in Africa, its special relationship with the continent's Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) countries made it likely that it would play a role of some importance.

Portugal

Portugal - Western Europe

At the beginning of the 1990s, Portugal's relations with Western Europe were closer than ever before. Historically, Portugal had remained aloof from Europe, its main link to the continent being a long-standing alliance with Britain. In 1949 Portugal became a founding member of NATO, in 1955 it joined the United Nations (UN), in 1960 it became a part of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), and the following year joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Portugal signed a free-trade agreement with the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1972 and gained admittance to the Council of Europe in 1976. In 1988 Portugal became a member of the Western European Union (WEU).

Portugal's application to the EC in 1977 marked a major change in its relationship with Europe. After years of negotiations, it was granted admission on January 1, 1986. Becoming part of EC affected not only the country's economy but also government and society. As the poorest member of the EC, Portugal would receive large grants from the EC bodies to bring the country's infrastructure, living conditions, and education up to the level of the community's other members. The formation of the EC's single market in 1993 would be another step toward Portugal's integration into Europe.

As a result of these and many other international ties, traditional issues of whether Portugal would be First, Second, or Third World, socialist or capitalist, European or South Atlanticist were no longer issues at the beginning of the 1990s. Portugal had become part of the community of Western, European, democratic states. Nevertheless, Portuguese worried at times whether their country's identity might be lost in this larger community and whether its industry and commerce would be able to compete in the large tariff-free single market. Although it had prospered since it joined the EC in 1986, the real economic challenges would come in the 1990s.

EC membership had meant that Portugal had close voluntary relations with Spain for the first time in its history. Until then Portugal had maintained a wary distance from its large neighbor, although once, against its will, it had actually been a part of Spain for sixty years (1580-1640). For the most part, however, Portugal looked to its alliance with Britain for support in remaining independent. Although the Portuguese no longer believed that Spain posed a military threat, they were concerned that the stronger Spanish economy could gradually absorb them.

After the revolution, relations between the two countries were tense at times. As a means of tempering disputes, a treaty of 1977 set up a Luso-Iberian Council to promote cooperation. In addition, the countries' prime ministers have held occasional summit meetings since 1983. The most serious disagreements have centered on the access of Spain's modern fishing fleet to Portuguese waters. Spain won on this issue but made some economic concessions to Portugal in return.

Some of the tensions between Portugal and Spain during the 1980s had a military origin, however. When Spain joined NATO in 1982, the Portuguese feared that an Iberian Command would be created with the result that Portuguese forces would come under the control of Madrid. Portuguese objections to this proposal ended when Spain was included under the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). Portugal kept its long-standing role under NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT).

Portuguese ties with Britain, also an Atlantic power, dated from the signing in 1386 of the Treaty of Windsor, the longestlasting alliance in the Western world. The two countries had long secured mutual benefits from this treaty. Portugal sought British protection against Spain and later France; Britain saw Portugal as its point of access on the European continent when other avenues were closed. This was the case at times during the Napoleonic period and during World War II when Britain was allowed to use the Azores for military purposes. Also binding the countries together was substantial British investment over the centuries, most notably in Portugal's wine and port industries.

Portugal traditionally maintained good relations with France, mainly to balance Spain's power. Portugal also had strong feelings of affinity with France, and French intellectual trends had a steady following in Lisbon. French influence was seen in the Portuguese legal system and administrative system. Until recently, when it was displaced by English, French was the second language of educated Portuguese. Many working-class Portuguese also had links with France. During the 1950s and 1960s, some three-quarters of a million Portuguese emigrated to that country in search of work.

Portugal

Portugal - United States

The United States and Portugal traditionally considered each other friends and allies. These sentiments were reinforced by the large number of Portuguese immigrants to the United States and the growing economic and political importance of this Portuguese community. Since 1943, when the United States built the Lajes Air Base on Terceira Island in the Azores, American interests in Portugal were mainly strategic and military. In return for the use of this vitally important base, the United States gave military aid to Portugal. Portugal also benefited from the European Recovery Program (ERP), more commonly known as the Marshall Plan. During the 1960s and early 1970s, relations between the two countries were sometimes strained because the United States took an anticolonial stand with regard to Portuguese Africa.

United States officials were not worried initially by the Revolution of 1974. They assumed that General Sp�nola, a military man and a conservative, would maintain control. As the revolution moved sharply to the left, however, and it appeared possible the PCP might come to power, United States officials became uneasy. Frank Carlucci, the United States ambassador in Lisbon, directed a campaign to aid democratic groups. The United States and its NATO allies provided assistance to the socialists and socialist trade unions because they were viewed as the best alternative to a communist takeover. The United States also sought to rally the moderate elements within the military and in Portugal generally. The campaign paid off as Portugal remained democratic.

United States assistance, presence, and involvement remained high during the late 1970s. But as Portuguese politics came to resemble those of other West European nations during the 1980s, United States assistance declined. In 1983 the base agreement was renegotiated, but Portuguese officials were subsequently disappointed by a reduction in American military aid. As part of the base agreement, the Luso-American Development Foundation was created to promote economic and cultural ties between the two countries. The next base negotiations, scheduled for the early 1990s, were certain to be onerous as the two countries each sought to realize their respective aims. The United States would continue to have a keen interest in the Lajes Air Base, the only such base available, while Portugal, less dependent on the United States as it became integrated into Europe, would have a strong hand at the negotiating table.

Portugal

Portugal - Brazil and East Timor

At the beginning of the 1990s, Portugal still retained a special interest in its former colony Brazil, although the Portuguese continued to occasionally look down on Brazilians as "people from the tropics," just as Brazilians had their own jokes about the Portuguese. Relations between the two countries were shaped by Brazil's much greater size and more powerful economy. For this reason, Brazilian investment in Portugal in the 1970s and 1980s was considerably greater than Portuguese investment in Brazil. Brazilian telenovelas (soap operas) also dominated Portuguese television, leading to additional resentments. In general, however, relations between the two countries were good, although as of the beginning of the 1990s, any "special" relationship was now largely historical, cultural, and nostalgic, rather than a reflection of concrete interests.

East Timor, Portugal's former colony on the eastern half of the island of Timor in Indonesia, remained a concern for Lisbon in the early 1990s. Portuguese settlers first came to the island in 1520, but it was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that Portugal had control of the territory. In 1975 war broke out between rival groups striving for independence from Portugal. Late in the year, Indonesian troops invaded to stop the fighting, and in 1976 East Timor was declared part of Indonesia. As of the early 1990s, continuing resistance on the part of Timorese guerrillas against Indonesian rule had claimed the lives of as many as 100,000 people.

As of the early 1990s, the UN continued to regard Portugal as the administering authority in East Timor. Portuguese officials, for their part, believed that their country had a moral obligation to remain involved in the affairs of its former colony. Through a variety of diplomatic moves, Lisbon attempted to move the Indonesian government to arrange a settlement that could bring peace and even independence to East Timor. Indonesia refused to loosen its hold on the territory because it feared such an action might embolden other areas restive under its control, such as West Irian, to seek independence.

Portugal also sought to maintain good relations with North African and Middle Eastern countries, in part because of geography and in part because Portugal depended entirely on imported oil. Its "tilt" toward the Islamic countries sometimes produced strains in United States-Portuguese relations, particularly when the Middle East was in turmoil and the United States wished to use its bases in the Azores in pursuit of its own Middle Eastern policies.

Portugal