José Baptista Pinheiro de Azevedo

José Baptista Pinheiro de Azevedo ^{? / i} (bornJune 5, 1917inLuanda, †August 10, 1983inLisbon) was a military andPortuguesepolitician and from September 19, 1975 to July 23, 1976 Prime Minister of his country.

Life

Pinheiro de Azevedo entered the Naval Academy at the age of 17. His career took him to London , among other places , where he worked as a naval attachée at the Portuguese embassy from 1968 to 1971 . He rose to the rank of admiral within the Navy . As a military man, he supported the Carnation Revolution , the uprising of the military against the dictatorship of the Estado Novo . He was a member of the National Salvation Council , which took over the government in Portugal after the Carnation Revolution.

After the Carnation Revolution, clashes quickly arose within the army and society about the future course of the country. A rather conservative wing, represented primarily by older high-ranking officers such as Generals Spínola and da Costa Gomes and conservative politicians such as Francisco Sá Carneiro , were opposed to radical socialist currents within the MFA , primarily those of younger officers such as Captain Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho were worn. At first it looked as if the more radical elements would win, so General Spínola, the first president after the Carnation Revolution, had to appoint Vasco Gonçalves, a representative of the radical wing, as prime minister in 1974. Spínola later resigned because he could no longer master the radicals and even had to leave the country after a failed coup by his supporters (March 11, 1975). Against the supposed victory of the radicals, a counter-movement was now forming, also within the MFA itself. The radical forces within the MFA publish a decidedly socialist program with their manifesto “For the construction of a socialist society in Portugal”, while the “Group of Nine” is formed within the MFA under the leadership of Captain Melo Antunes , who published an alternative proposal. These divisions within the MFA allowed General da Costa Gomes, successor to Spínola as president, and himself a moderate-wing supporter, to dismiss the Vasco Gonçalves government on September 19, 1975 and appoint the more moderate Pinheiro de Azevedo as the new prime minister.

Pinheiro de Azevedo took over the country's government at a crucial time. The fate of the country was “on the knife edge”, both a slide of the country into the socialist camp and the development of a representative democracy seemed conceivable. Shortly before the de Azevedo government took office, elections for a constituent assembly had taken place in Portugal, which were won by the more moderate centrist and socialist forces. The radicals saw the socialist "achievements" of the Carnation Revolution in jeopardy through this election defeat and the change of government from Vasco Gonçalves to Pinheiro de Azevedo. To defend it, a radical group of soldiers, SUV ( Soldados Unidos Vencerão , the united soldiers will win) was formed. The "hot summer 1975" of a civil war-like situation in Portugal came about. SUV, together with the Portuguese Communist Party and radical trade unions, called for mass demonstrations, a radio station that played a prominent role during the Carnation Revolution was occupied by radicals and eventually blown up by government forces. Large estates were illegally occupied by landless farm workers, while the large landowners set up right-wing guerrilla groups.

The decision was finally made on November 25, 1975. Radicalized soldiers mutinied against their superiors. After President da Costa Gomes and the de Azevedo government succeeded in signing a standstill agreement with the communists, the government counter-attacked. A state of emergency was declared, and General Eanes , newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces , managed to end the mutiny by military means relatively quickly. Nonetheless, there were further unrest in 1976, including mass demonstrations calling for the amnesty of the soldiers involved in the November 25 coup and a wave of bombings against left-wing politicians.

It was to the great merit of the de Azevedo government to work persistently towards the return of the country to constitutional conditions during these turbulent times. On April 2, 1976, the new constitution drawn up by the Constituent Assembly came into force, and according to this constitution, parliamentary elections were held for the first time on April 25, 1976 . The elections were won by the Socialist Party (PS) , even if it did not achieve a majority of its own. The centrist and Christian Democratic parties, which are close to de Azevedo, only came in second and third place. Also under the new constitution, presidential elections were held on June 27 , for which de Azevedo was also a candidate. He came, however, behind the election winner General Eanes and Captain Otelo, who represented the radical socialist currents, only in third place with 14.2% of the votes.

After Mário Soares , the party leader of the socialists who had won the parliamentary elections, had managed to negotiate a parliamentary majority for a minority government supported by the PS, de Azevedo resigned and handed over his mandate to the first democratically legitimized government since the Carnation Revolution. He later chaired the Christian Democratic Party of Portugal for a year.

Web links

• José Baptista Pinheiro de Azevedo in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

predecessor	Office	successor
Vasco Gonçalves	Prime Minister of Portugal 1975–1976	Mario Soares