Third Portuguese Republic

The carnation, the symbol of the Revolution that started the Third Portuguese Republic.

In Portugal, 1926 marked the end of the First Republic, in a military coup that established an authoritarian government called Estado Novo, that was led by António de Oliveira Salazar until 1968, when he was forced to step down due to health problems. Salazar was succeeded by Marcelo Caetano. The government faced many internal and external problems, including the Portuguese Colonial War.

On 25 April 1974 a mostly bloodless coup of young military personnel forced Marcelo Caetano to step down. Most of the population of the country soon supported this uprising. It was called the Carnation Revolution because of the use of the carnation on soldiers' rifles as a symbol of peace. This revolution was the beginning of the Portuguese Third Republic. The days after the revolution saw widespread celebration for the end of 48 years of dictatorship and soon exiled politicians like Álvaro Cunhal and Mário Soares returned to the country for the celebration of May Day, in what became a symbol of the country's regained freedom.

After the fall of the Estado Novo, differences began to emerge on which political direction the country should take, including among the military. The revolution was mainly the result of the work of a group of young officers unified under the Movimento das Forças Armadas (MFA). Within this group, there were several different political views, among them those represented by Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and considered to be the more radical wing of the movement and those represented by Ernesto Melo Antunes, considered to be the more moderate one.

In addition to that, to ensure the success of the uprising, the MFA looked for support among the conservative sections of the military that had been disaffected with the Caetano government, chief among which were the former Head of the Armed Forces, General Francisco da Costa Gomes, and General António de Spínola. Both had been expelled from the Estado-Maior-General das Forças Armadas for criticizing the government.

The differing political views came to be broadly represented by three main informal groups, which included both military and civilians. However, even within these groups that shared similar political views there were considerable disagreements.

• the conservatives: within the military, represented by Costa Gomes and Spínola and within the MFA by Melo Antunes. Its civilian representatives were politicians that had been part of the Ala Liberal (Liberal Wing) of the Assembleia Nacional (National Assembly) that called for a transition to democracy, among them the future Prime-Ministers Francisco de Sá Carneiro and Francisco Pinto Balsemão.
• the socialists: that were in favour of creating a social-democratic state like those of Western Europe and were mainly represented by the Socialist Party and its leader Mário Soares.
• the communists: that were in favour of creating a communist state with an economic system similar to those of the Warsaw Pact countries. The main representative of this group within the military and the MFA was Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, while the main political party included in this group was the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), led by Álvaro Cunhal.

In 2001, António Guterres, the Prime Minister since 1995, resigned after the local elections, and after legislative elections on the following year, José Manuel Barroso was appointed as the new Prime Minister.[13] In July 2004, Prime Minister Barroso resigned as prime minister to become President of the European Commission.[14] He was succeeded by Pedro Santana Lopes, as leader of Social Democratic Party and Prime Minister of Portugal.[15] In 2005, Socialists got a landslide victory in early elections. Socialist Party leader Jose Socrates became the new prime minister after the elections.[16] In 2009 elections Socialist Party won re-election but lost its overall majority. In October 2009, Prime Minister Jose Socrates formed a new minority government.[17]

Portugal suffered from a severe economic crisis between 2009 and 2016.[21]

In January 2011, Anibal Cavaco Silva was easily re-elected as President of the Republic of Portugal for a second five-year term in the first round of the election.[22]

In 2011, Portugal applied for EU assistance, as the third European Union country after Greece and Ireland, to cope with its budget deficit caused by the financial crisis.[23]

In June 2011, center-right Passos Coelho became the new prime minister of the financially-troubled country, succeeding former Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates. The Social Democrat Party, led by Pedro Passos Coelho, won the parliamentary election earlier same month.[24]

Austerity budgets included spending cuts and higher taxes, which caused worsening living standards in the country and higher unemployment to above 16%.[25]

In October 2015 parliamentary elections, the governing centre-right coalition of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho won narrowly, but the coalition lost its absolute majority in parliament.[26]

The new minority government led by Passos Coelho was soon toppled in a parliamentary vote. The 11-day-old government was the shortest-lived national government in the Portuguese history. In November 2015, The Socialist leader Antonio Costa became Portugal's prime minister, after forming an alliance with Communist, Green and Left Bloc parties.[27]

In January 2016, centre-right politician Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was elected as the new president of Portugal.[28]

In October 2016, former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres was officially appointed as the next United Nations Secretary-General. He took office on 1 January 2017, when Ban Ki-moon's second five-year term ended.[29] António Guterres has announced that he will be seeking a second five-year term as UN Secretary-General, which would begin in January 2022.[30]

In October 2019, Prime Minister Antonio Costa won the parliamentary election. His Socialist party won the most votes, but it did not get the absolute majority in parliament. The party continued its pact with two far-left parties - the Left Bloc and the Communists. Portugal's economy had grown above the EU average and many cuts to public sector had been reversed.[31]

In January 2021, Portugal's centre-right president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa won re-election, after taking 60.7% of the votes in the first round of the election.[32]

In June 2021, United Nations General Assembly unanimously elected Antonio Guterres to a second five-year term as secretary-general.[33]

The ruling Socialist Party, led by Prime Minister António Costa, won an outright majority in the January 2022 snap general election. The Socialist Party won 120 seats in the 230 seat parliament, defeating the right-wing to form the XXIII Constitutional Government of Portugal.[34]

GDP growth %

GDP per capita (in US$ PPP)

Source:[35]

• Treaties of Portugal