HISTORY
Portugal is one of the oldest states
in Europe. It traces its modern history to A.D. 1140 when, following
a 9-year rebellion against the King of Leon-Castile, Afonso Henriques,
the Count of Portugal, became the country's first king, Afonso
I. Afonso and his successors expanded their territory southward,
capturing Lisbon from the Moors in 1147. The approximate present-day
boundaries were secured in 1249 by Afonso III.
By 1337, Portuguese explorers had
reached the Canary Islands. Inspired by Prince Henry the Navigator
(1394-1460), explorers such as Vasco da Gama, Bartolomeu Dias,
and Pedro Alvares Cabral made explorations from Brazil to India
and Japan. Portugal eventually became a massive colonial empire
with vast territories in Africa and Latin America (Brazil) and
outposts in the Far East (East Timor, Macau, Goa).
Dynastic disputes led in 1580 to
the succession of Philip II of Spain to the Portuguese throne.
A revolt ended Spanish hegemony in 1640, and the House of Braganca
was established as Portugal's ruling family, lasting until the
establishment of the Portuguese Republic in 1910.
During the next 16 years, intense
political rivalries and economic instability undermined newly
established democratic institutions. Responding to pressing economic
problems, a military government, which had taken power in 1926,
named a prominent university economist, Dr. Antonio Salazar finance
minister in 1928, and prime minister in 1932. For the next 42
years, Salazar and his successor, Marcelo Caetano, appointed prime
minister in 1968, ruled Portugal as an authoritarian "corporate"
state. Unlike most other European countries, Portugal did not
play a combatant role in World War II. It was a charter member
of NATO, joining in 1949.
In the early 1960s, wars with independence
movements in Portugal's African territories began to drain labor
and wealth from Portugal. Professional dissatisfaction within
the military, coupled with a growing sense of the futility of
the African conflicts, led to the formation of the clandestine
"Armed Forces Movement" in 1973.
The downfall of the Portuguese corporate
state came on April 25, 1974, when the Armed Forces Movement seized
power in a nearly bloodless coup and established a provisional
military government.
Gen. Antonio de Spinola was installed
as president after the coup but resigned in September 1974 to
protest the growing power exercised by communist and leftist forces.
He was replaced by another general, Francisco da Costa Gomes,
who retained a procommunist, Gen. Vasco dos Santos Goncalves,
as prime minister. On March 11, 1975, a rebellion by rightist
military officers failed, and former President Spinola fled the
country.
On April 25 (now Portugal's national
day), the first anniversary of the 1974 coup, Portuguese voters
chose a Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution. The vote
gave an overwhelming majority of 72% to candidates of three democratic
political parties: the Socialists (PS), Popular Democrats (which
later changed its name to Social Democrats- PSD), and Center Social
Democrats (CDS).
The communists and their allies
in the Armed Forces Movement attempted to play down their relative
lack of popular support (the Communist Party won only 12.5% of
the vote) by tightening their hold on the provisional government
and by seeking to diminish sharply the role of political parties.
Goncalves resigned under mounting
civilian and military pressure, and a new provisional government
(the sixth since April 1974) took office in September 1975, led
by Adm. Jose Pinheiro de Azevedo.
The political tug-of-war continued
until November 25, when left-wing military elements seized control
of several strategic military bases, only to surrender peacefully
the next day after a determined show of force by loyal units under
the direction of Lt. Col. Antonio Ramalho Eanes.
Portugal's new constitution took
effect on April 25, 1976, when elections for a parliamentary Assembly
of the Republic also were held. In June, Eanes was elected president
with 62% of the vote after gaining the support of the three major
democratic parties. He chose Mario Soares, whose Socialist Party
had won a plurality in the parliamentary elections, to serve as
prime minister of Portugal's first democratic government since
the 1920s.
Soares' minority socialist government
fell in December 1977 and was followed by a succession of short-lived
coalition and minority governments. In the July 1987 parliamentary
elections, PSD leader Cavaco Silva led his party to a stunning
victory, resulting in the first absolute majority for a single
party. The PSD received a slight majority (just over 50%) of the
popular vote but won 148 of the then-250 seats in parliament.
Mario Soares, who had been elected president in February 1986,
consequently invited Prime Minister Cavaco Silva to form a government,
the first that appeared likely to complete its 4-year term since
the 1974 revolution.
Since entering office, the Cavaco Silva government has implemented
economic and social reforms intended to put Portugal on a more
competitive footing with its European partners. The government
and the Socialist Party also cooperated in the assembly to eliminate
Marxist rhetoric from the constitution and to pave the way for
full privatization of public sector enterprises. In the June 18,
1989, European Parliamentary elections, the ruling Social Democratic
Party won 32.5% of the vote (vice 37% in 1987). The socialists
increased their vote to 28.5%. Nearly half of the registered voters
stayed away from the polls.
