Mario Soares

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Mário Soares (2008)

Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares ( pronunciation ? / I , [ ˈmaɾiw ˈnɔbrə ˈlɔpɪʃ suˈaɾɨʃ ]; * December 7, 1924 in Lisbon ; † January 7, 2017 ibid.) Was a Portuguese politician of the Third Republic . He founded in the 19 April 1973 Bad Münstereifel the Portuguese Socialist Party . In 1974 he became Portuguese Foreign Minister for the first time and in 1977 for the second time . Audio file / audio sample

He was Prime Minister of his country for three terms from 1976 to 1977, 1978 and 1983 to 1985 . Soares was then President of the Republic of Portugal for a total of two terms from 1986 to 1996 . From 1999 to 2004 he was a member of the European Parliament .

biography

Youth and career start

On December 7, 1924, Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares was born to Elisa Nobre and João Soares. His father was a former priest, educator, Republican politician, and anti-fascist. Mário first studied history and philosophy , then law at the University of Lisbon .

Soares joined the Communist Party (PCP) while still a student . Responsible for the communist youth organizations, he organized the cheering demonstrations at the end of the Second World War and then took part in the founding of the youth organization of the United Democrats Movement (MUD), which he represented at its central committee meeting in 1946, chaired by Mário Azevedo Gomes. In this capacity he was arrested for the first time in the same year by the PIDE , Salazar's secret police . When Soares organized the candidacy of General Norton de Matos for the office of President in 1949 , he was arrested for the third time. Norton de Matos broke with him when he discovered that Mário Soares was an "agent" of the PCP.

In February 1949, Soares married the actress Maria Barroso in the Aljube prison in Lisbon. With her he had two children, son João Barroso Soares (* 1949) and daughter Isabel Barroso Soares (* 1951).

Rise in socialist parties

In April 1964, Francisco Ramos da Costa, Manuel Tito de Morais and Mário Soares founded the Portuguese Socialist Action in Geneva , a movement clearly oriented towards social democracy and the cradle of the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS), which was founded a decade later . Since he broke with the communists in 1951, he already had the republican and socialist resistance, the election campaign of Humberto Delgado (for the office of president in 1958) - whose family made him their lawyer after his assassination by the PIDE in 1965 - the Revolta da Sé 1959 and the program for the democratization of the republic in 1961.

After the regime imprisoned him several times without being able to restrain him, it was decided to deport him . In March 1968 he took the ship with his wife Maria Barroso and their children Isabel and João to São Tomé and Príncipe , where he stayed until November of the same year. Salazar was replaced by Marcelo Caetano after a stroke in the summer of 1968 . This allowed Soares to return to Lisbon.

In the elections to the National Assembly in October 1969, the opposition ran independently for the first time. Mário Soares stood for the Electoral Union of Democratic Unity (CEUD). This association gave the anti-fascist opposition a clear face, but just as clearly set itself apart from the communists, who were organized in the Democratic Electoral Commission (CDE). The following year, Mário Soares went into exile in Rome and then to Paris , from where he only returned to Lisbon immediately after the revolution . During this time in exile, he went to a closed meeting in Bad Münstereifel in 1973 , where the Socialist Party (PS) was founded on April 19, 1973, with the active participation of the then SPD chairman Willy Brandt .

Three days after the Carnation Revolution , on the afternoon of April 28, 1974, Maria Barroso, Mário Soares and Manuel Tito de Morais arrived in Lisbon, having boarded the Sud-Express in Paris the previous evening . This train went down in history as the “train of freedom”. He was greeted by a cheering crowd at Santa Apolónia train station . Back in Portugal, now as a free man, Mário Soares immediately took on important tasks in the democratization of the republic, not only as leader of the PS, but also as foreign minister of the provisional governments. He accepted this post, which General Spínola offered him, on the condition that communist leader Álvaro Cunhal would also be involved in the government and thus in responsibility.

On January 16, 1975, the PS called for its first mass rally. She demonstrated her power on the grounds around the Sports Palace. This was particularly true of Álvaro Cunhal's PCP , who accused the PS of totalitarian ambitions. The socialists rejected a single union and the monopoly of the CGTP - the trade union federation closely related to the PCP. The PS-affiliated union UGT was finally founded . On the way back from Alvor, where he had signed the Treaty of Independence of the Colonies as Foreign Minister, Mário Soares took part in this mass rally, alongside Salgado Zenha , the theoretician in this fight for freedom and plurality of trade unions.

In the first free elections to the constituent assembly on April 25, 1975 , the PS won with 38% of the vote compared to the 12.5% ​​of the PCP. Shortly afterwards, Mário Soares demanded the dismissal of Prime Minister Vasco Gonçalves . The second demonstration of the strength of the PS took place in the late afternoon of 19 July 1975, according to estimates at the time, around 250,000 people streamed onto the Alameda Dom Afonso Henriques in Lisbon, despite the barriers erected by supporters of the PCP on the access roads to the capital.

The then President of Brazil José Sarney receives the then President of Portugal Mário Soares (1988).

Prime Minister

In the first elections to the National Assembly , the PS again received 35% of the vote. On July 23, 1976, Mário Soares was appointed the first freely elected Prime Minister since the revolution ( Soares I cabinet ). The democratization of the country began to consolidate. The government decided to put an end to the agrarian reform, an economic reorientation and the consolidation of the completely shattered state finances.

In the election campaign a year later, the Portuguese Socialist Party, led by Mário Soares, advocated Portugal's entry into the European Community . As Prime Minister, Mário Soares made a formal application on March 28, 1977. Years later, and again as Prime Minister - this time in the government of Bloco Central , a grand coalition of PS and PSD (Social Democratic Party) , which he established after the Socialists' election victory June 4, 1983 with the chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Portugal PSD Carlos Mota Pinto - he signed the certificate of accession to the EC on the morning of June 12, 1985. It was his last major official act as Prime Minister before the breakup of the coalition ( Cabinet Soares III ) after the election of Cavaco Silva as chairman of the PSD. The government fell, but on January 1, 1986, Portugal and Spain joined the EC as part of the second southern expansion .

President and private citizen

After the end of the grand coalition, Mário Soares left the top candidate to his party friend António de Almeida Santos , who led a campaign “for 43%” but was beaten by Cavaco Silva. Mário Soares then decided to run for President of the Republic, which initially seemed hopeless . After he was beaten in the first ballot with 25.43% of the votes cast, behind the right-wing candidate Diogo Freitas do Amaral (46.31%), but ahead of Salgado Zenha (20.88%), supported by the PCP and PRD , and thus reached the runoff election, he was able to win it on February 16, 1986 with 51.18% of the votes against 48.82% for Freitas do Amaral. This was the beginning of two terms and ten years of presidency, during which he achieved great popularity because of his closeness to the people.

A special stamp that Mário Soares imposed on the highest office of the state, the so-called “textbook of the influence of the President of the Republic”, was his “Presidências Abertas”, a modern and democratic revival of the former “Royal Excursions”. His “Presidência Aberta” in early 1993 in the greater Lisbon area had a particularly strong impact. In this campaign, Soares criticized the region's “social wounds” inflicted by Cavaco's policies. The black flags of hunger - which were first hoisted when he was prime minister - were again waving against Cavaco on the Setúbal peninsula . Soares gained popularity in a region that was previously considered a communist stronghold . That moment marked the beginning of the end of the Cavaco Silva era.

His second term in office was characterized by systematic opposition to the Cavaco Silva government, which ruled with an absolute majority. Taking advantage of the constitutional power that the office gave him, such as the right to veto bills. Even more through his "textbook of influence", Mário Soares fought against the power of the political right. In 1995, shortly before the end of his term in office, he organized the congress “Portugal - what future?”, A kind of experimental balloon for António Guterres to take power over the socialists .

In 1999, Mário Soares was his party's top candidate in the European Parliament elections, to which he was a member until 2004. From his private study in Lisbon and while traveling, he continued to intervene in Portuguese politics through lectures, comments and interviews.

In the presidential elections in January 2006 , Mário Soares applied again for the office of President at the age of 81. However, his longstanding conservative opponent Aníbal Cavaco Silva won the elections with a clear majority in the first ballot. Soares came in third with 14.31% of the vote, behind his party colleague Manuel Alegre (20.74%).

Soares was an honorary member of the Club of Rome and was the only foreign member to be appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation . From 1997 to 1999 he was President of the International European Movement .

death

Mário Soares was admitted to the Hospital da Cruz Vermelha on December 13, 2016 , where he was temporarily in the intensive care unit. He died of heart failure on January 7, 2017.

The Portuguese government declared three days of state mourning Monday through Wednesday after confirming his death. A funeral procession through Lisbon was announced for Sunday, January 8th, during which Soares' body was taken to the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos for laying out. The official funeral ceremonies with military honors and speeches of President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa , President of Parliament Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues and the family took place on January 10th, as did the funeral at Cemitério dos Prazeres . Prime Minister António Costa was unable to attend the celebrations as he was on a state visit to India.

Honors

Between 1977 and 1998, Mário Soares was awarded honorary doctorates by 36 universities worldwide.

literature

  • Mário Soares: Portugal - legal dictatorship between Europe and colonialism, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg, 1973.

Web links

Commons : Mário Soares  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

proof

  1. ↑ Portugal's former President Mario Soares dies at 92
  2. ^ Result of the first ballot on January 26, 1986 (National Election Commission Comissão Nacional de Eleições )
  3. ^ Election result of the second ballot on February 16, 1986 (National Election Commission Comissão Nacional de Eleições )
  4. ^ Election result of January 22, 2006 (National Electoral Commission Comissão Nacional de Eleições )
  5. ^ Soares in the FES organization chart. (accessed on July 2, 2011)
  6. ^ Morreu Mário Soares. Adeus a um português maior. In: Público. January 7, 2017. Retrieved January 7, 2017 (Portuguese).
  7. ^ A b Natália Faria, Bárbara Wong, Leonete Botelho: Governo decreta três dias de luto nacional. In: Público. January 7, 2017. Retrieved January 7, 2017 (Portuguese).
  8. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Mário Soares
  9. ↑ Jean Schoos : The medals and decorations of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the former Duchy of Nassau in the past and present. Publishing house of Sankt-Paulus Druckerei AG. Luxembourg 1990. ISBN 2-87963-048-7 . P. 345.
  10. ↑ Le onorificenze della Repubblica Italiana. Retrieved November 11, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Suomen Valkoisen Ruusun ritarikunnan suurristin ketjuineen ulkomaalaiset saajat. Retrieved November 11, 2019 .
  12. ↑ AAS 82 (1990), n.12, p. 1463.
  13. ^ Ordensdetaljer. Retrieved November 11, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Wayback Machine. March 4, 2016, accessed November 11, 2019 .
  15. ↑ a b Honorary Knighst and Dames. Retrieved November 11, 2019 .
  16. ↑ List of all national and international honors on the official website of Mário Soares (port.) Accessed on November 28, 2011
predecessor Office successor
José Baptista Pinheiro de Azevedo
Francisco Pinto Balsemão 		Prime Minister of Portugal
1976–1978
1983–1985 		Alfredo Nobre da Costa
Aníbal Cavaco Silva
Antonio Ramalho Eanes President of Portugal
1986–1996 		Jorge Sampaio
personal data
SURNAME Soares, Mário
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Soares, Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese politician, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Lisbon
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 2017
Place of death Lisbon