Afonso Costa

Afonso Costa

Afonso Augusto da Costa (born March 6, 1871 in Seia , † May 11, 1937 in Paris ), often just called Afonso Costa , was a Portuguese lawyer , university professor and politician . As the leader of the Democratic Party , he was one of the most important politicians of the First Republic . He was minister of justice , several times finance minister , brief foreign minister and a total of three times as head of government of his country .

Life

Afonso Costa studied law at the University of Coimbra . In 1895 he received his doctorate , his dissertation "The Church and the Social Question" (A igreja ea questão social) strongly criticized the encyclical Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII. which was published only a short time before - in 1891 - and is regarded as the basis of Catholic social teaching . Here anticlericalism was already indicated , which would later become an important drive for da Costa.

Afonso Costa was already politically active in the times of the monarchy , he was one of the few members of the Republicans, who were disadvantaged by the then suffrage . After the fall of the monarchy in 1910, he joined the provisional government of Teófilo Braga as Minister of Justice .

The period after the end of the monarchy is marked by a militant anti-clericalism, of which Afonso da Costa was the outstanding representative, who saw the Catholic Church as a pillar of the Ancien Régime and an obstacle to the modern development of the country. The relationship between the new republic and the Church became a dominant issue in the political debate in the early years of the republic. As Minister of Justice, Afonso Costa initiated a number of anti-clerical laws, including the law that expelled the Jesuits from Portugal for the second time in the country's history, the repeal of all religious orders and, in particular, the “Law of Separation” (lei da separação ) , which ordered the radical separation of church and state. Clergymen were even prohibited from wearing religious clothing in public. Afonso Costa was seen as the personification of the anti-clerical currents of the time and was nicknamed "Mata-Frades" (monk-killer).

Da Costas's anti-clerical policy was not without contradiction in the republican camp and was one of the reasons that the Portuguese Republican Party , the successor to the old republicans from the time of the monarchy, finally split in 1912. The evolutionists ( liberal , center-right ) and the unionists ( conservative ) left the party, the remaining left- wing liberal wing (now mostly called the Democratic Party (PD)) had Afonso Costa as the undisputed leader.

After the failure of the Duarte Leite government , President Arriaga appointed Afonso Costa Prime Minister for the first time on January 9, 1913. This first da Costa government remained in office for a year, a remarkable achievement given the notorious political instability of the first republic. During this time, Da Costa achieved an initial stabilization of the chronically deficit Portuguese public finances. On January 9, 1914, the first Afonso Costa government ended. He was again head of government from November 29, 1915 to March 16, 1916, during which time he also held the post of finance minister. During da Costas' second reign, the question of whether Portugal should side with the Entente in World War I dominated the country's political discussion. Da Costa was in favor of Portuguese participation in the war. On his orders, German merchant ships were confiscated in Portuguese ports in February 1916, and the German Empire then declared war on Portugal.

After Portugal entered the war, a large coalition between democrats and evolutionists was formed (so-called "government of sacred unity" - governo da sagrada união ), as the need for a more stable government was seen in times of war. The evolutionist António José de Almeida became prime minister of this grand coalition on March 16, 1916 . Da Costa therefore resigned as prime minister, but remained in the cabinet as finance minister, where he exerted a decisive influence as the leader of the largest party in government. On April 25, 1917, the "Holy Unity" ended, da Costa was again, now for the third time, head of government of his country while retaining the office of finance minister. The new government consisted only of members of the Democrats and non-party affiliates, but the evolutionists tolerated the government.

The third term of office da Costas was marked by corruption allegations. a. proposed to prefer his own law firm and refuse to answer to parliament. There were violent demonstrations against the government with fatalities - da Costa finally declared a state of emergency on June 12 .

The military coup of Sidónio Pais ended da Costa's time as prime minister. He had to go into exile in France on December 8, 1917 .

After the end of the "New Republic" (República Nova) of Sidónio Pais and restoration of constitutional conditions in Portugal, he represented his country at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and signed the Treaty of Versailles for Portugal .

He was asked twice more, in 1922 and 1923, to take over the government, but declined such requests. After the first republic was ended by the putsch of May 28, 1926, he went into exile again in Paris, where he was considered an outspoken critic and opponent of the Salazar dictatorship . He finally died in 1937 in exile in France.

Web links

Commons : Afonso Costa  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	successor
Duarte Leite	Prime Minister of Portugal 1913–1914	Bernardino Machado
José de Castro	Prime Minister of Portugal 1915–1916	Antonio José de Almeida
Antonio José de Almeida	Prime Minister of Portugal 1917	Sidónio Pais