Paulo Portas

Paulo Portas
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office 21 June 2011
Prime Minister	Pedro Passos Coelho
Preceded by	Luís Amado
Minister of National Defence
In office 6 April 2002 – 12 March 2005
Prime Minister	José Durão Barroso Pedro Santana Lopes
Preceded by	Rui Pena
Succeeded by	Luís Amado
Member of Parliament
Incumbent
Assumed office 27 October 1995
Constituency	Aveiro
Personal details
Born	September 12, 1962 (1962-09-12) Lisbon, Portugal
Political party	People's Party
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Paulo de Sacadura Cabral Portas (born 12 September 1962 in Lisbon), commonly known just by Paulo Portas (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpawlu ˈpɔɾtɐʃ]), is a Portuguese politician, party leader of the Democratic and Social Centre – People's Party (CDS-PP), a member of the Portuguese Parliament and former Portuguese minister of State, National Defense and Sea Affairs.

In 2011, after he led his party to its best result in 30 years, Portas became the Minister of Foreign Affairs and State of Portugal in a coalition government between the PSD and the CDS-PP.

Early life

Born in Lisbon, in a family with roots in Vila Viçosa on the paternal side and agricultural aristocracy of the side of his mother, Portas grew up in a political family. His father, Nuno Portas (b. September 23, 1934 in Vila Viçosa), an architect, was a progressive, left-wing Roman Catholic. His mother, Helena Sacadura Cabral (b. December 7, 1934 in Lisbon), an economist, a jewel designer and journalist, was a conservative. Ms. Sacadura Cabral seemed to have greater influence on young Paulo. When his parents separated, Paulo stayed with his mother, while his brother Miguel Portas (a member of Bloco de Esquerda – Left Bloc) grew up with his father. By his mother side, Paulo is a great-nephew of Artur de Sacadura Cabral, an aviation commander who made the first ever trip from Portugal to Brazil in seaplane, with another commander, Carlos Viegas Gago Coutinho.

He was a militant member of the Democratic Popular Party (PPD, which is today's Social Democratic Party). He was a staunch follower of Francisco Sá Carneiro.

He became relatively known at a very early age for an article he wrote called "Três Traições" ("Three Treasons"), which attacked three prominent politicians: António dos Santos Ramalho Eanes, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, and Mário Soares. In the article, written while a teenager, but published in a weekly newspaper, he criticised the policy of decolonisation after the fall of Estado Novo in 1974. Portas studied law in the Portuguese Catholic University.

Career

Before becoming a politician, Portas was a journalist. In the late 1980s, he co-founded, with Miguel Esteves Cardoso, the weekly newspaper O Independente, which became famous for denouncing political scandals during the governments of Aníbal Cavaco Silva (1985–1995). This position earned him the qualification as one of the most hated men in the country. Many social-democrat politicians never forgave him his attitude during this period and never accepted his alliance with José Manuel Durão Barroso in 2002.

In 1995 he first became an MP with the People's Party (CDS-PP), and would eventually break with then-leader, Manuel Monteiro, three years later, to become the party leader himself. In the Parliament (1995-2002), he is known to be found of a very peculiar style of speech, using humour bordering paternalism, right-wing populist, demagoguery and unashamed self-infatuation, which he crystallised as his trademark, to contradict the views of the Portuguese Government, then led by the socialist António Guterres.

In 1998 Portas became the leader of the CDS-PP, which was in two coalition governments with the Social Democratic Party, from April 2002 to March 2005.

In the 2002 legislative elections, the People's Party won 14 of 230 seats in the Portuguese Parliament, with 8.8 percent of the vote. Portas was appointed Minister of State and National Defence in the first coalition government.

In 2004, while Defence minister, he sent war ships to prevent the entrance in Portuguese waters of a Dutch ship owned by the pro-choice organization Women on Waves. This ship was intended to pick up women and take them to international waters to be informed on how to perform abortions. Under Portuguese law, abortion was only allowed under very strict circumstances. One of the main critics of this decision was his own brother, Miguel Portas, a MP of the European Parliament. His decision was praised by both the Catholic Church and the pro-life groups in Portugal.

In June 2004, Prime Minister Durão Barroso resigned to became President of the European Commission, and was replaced by Pedro Santana Lopes, Portas becoming Minister of State, National Defence and Sea Affairs. It is not clear how Portas viewed the self-austing of Barroso and the rise of the unelected new Prime Minister, Santana Lopes.

Santana Lopes' and Paulo Portas' joint government had a short existence from the very start, and after the dissolution of Parliament by president Jorge Sampaio, the coalition suffered a crushing defeat in the early elections that followed in early 2005, with the PP losing 60,000 votes and two of its fourteen seats in Parliament; Portas announced on election night that he would resign from the party's leadership. His young right-wing supports cried in front of TV cameras before a leader still able to arouse the emotions of his zealot supporters. This exit from the stage would reveal temporary at best, as it is widely acknowledged that he never did stop interfering with the new leader through the destabilising conduct of his personal allies in the party. However he became leader of the Party again in 2007. In the 2009 legislative election Portas won 9 seats in the parliament and his party came to rouse as the third political force in Portugal.

Portas intervened weekly in a night talk show, called "O estado da Arte" (The state of the Art), where he analyses and elaborates on current mediatic issues. He also served as the chosen supporter of John II of Portugal in the Portuguese version of BBC's 100 greatest Britons: Grandes Portugueses.

In 2011, after he led his party to its best result in 30 years, Portas became the Minister of Foreign Affairs and State of Portugal in a coalition government between the PSD and the CDS-PP, in which his party got 3 ministries, the PSD got 4 and independents had 4.

References

• Paulo Portas. In Infopédia [Em linha]. Porto: Porto Editora, 2003-2008. [Consult. 2008-12-18]. <URL: http://www.infopedia.pt/$paulo-portas>.

Political offices
Preceded by Rui Pena	Minister of National Defence 2002–2005	Succeeded by Luís Amado
Preceded by Luís Amado	Minister of Foreign Affairs and of State 2011-present	Incumbent