- Francisco de Sá Carneiro
Infobox_Prime Minister
name = Francisco de Sá Carneiro
honorific-suffix = GCTE, GCC, GCL
imagesize =
order = 111thPrime Minister of Portugal (57th of the Republic, 9th since theCarnation Revolution )
president =António Ramalho Eanes
deputy =
term_start =January 3 ,1980
term_end =December 4 ,1980
predecessor =Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo
successor =Diogo Freitas do Amaral
birth_date = birth date|1934|6|19
birth_place =Porto
death_date = death date and age|1980|12|4|1934|6|19
death_place =Camarate
spouse = Isabel Maria Ferreira Nunes de Matos de Sá Carneiro (first wife)
Ebbe Merete Seidenfaden "Snu" Abecassis (not married)
party = Democratic Alliance
(Social Democratic)
occupation =Lawyer
religion =Catholic Francisco Manuel Lumbrales de Sá CarneiroAudio|Sá Carneiro.ogg| , GCTE, GCC, GCL (pronounced|fɾɐ̃ˈsiʃku sa kɐɾˈnɐiɾu;
Porto , Vitória,July 19 ,1934 –Loures ,Camarate ,December 4 ,1980 ), was Prime Minister ofPortugal for eleven months in 1980.Background
He was the third of five children of José Gualberto Chaves Marques de Sá Carneiro (b.
Barcelos ,August 31 ,1897 ), alawyer , and wife Maria Francisca Judite Pinto da Costa Leite (b.March 29 ,1908 ), of the Counts ofLumbrales inSpain .Career
A
lawyer by training, he became a member of the puppet National Assembly, where he became one of the leaders of the "Liberal Wing", which attempted to work for the gradual transformation ofAntónio de Oliveira Salazar 's dictatorship into a normal Western European democracy.In May 1974, a month after the
Carnation Revolution , Sá Carneiro founded the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), together withFrancisco Pinto Balsemão ,Joaquim Magalhães Mota ,Carlos Mota Pinto ,João Mota Amaral andAntónio Marques Mendes , and became its secretary-general. The PPD was soon renamed the Social Democratic Party (PSD); despite Sá Carneiro's original claims to be leading a left-of-centre party, he and the party soon drifted to the right. He wasminister without portfolio in a number of provisional governments, and was elected as a deputy to the Constitutional Assembly the next year.In 1976, he was elected to the
Assembly of the Republic . In November 1977, he resigned his office as president of the party, only to be reelected to that office the next year.In the general election of late 1979, he led the Democratic Alliance, a coalition of his Social Democratic Party, the right-wing Democratic and Social Centre Party, and two smaller parties, to victory. The Alliance polled 45.2 percent of the popular vote and gained 128 of the 250 seats in the
Assembly of the Republic ; 75 of these were from the PSD. PresidentAntónio Ramalho Eanes subsequently called on him to form a government on3 January 1980 , and formed Portugal's firstmajority government since theCarnation Revolution of 1974. In a second general election held in October that year, the Democratic Alliance increased its majority. The Alliance received 47.2 percent of the popular vote and 134 seats, 82 of them from the PSD. Sá Carneiro's triumph appeared to augur well for the presidential election two months later, in which Sá Carneiro was supportingAntónio Soares Carneiro (no relation).His victory was short-lived, however. On
4 December 1980 , while on his way to a presidential election rally inPorto , theCessna 421 he was on crashed into a building inCamarate soon after takeoff from Lisbon Airport. Eyewitnesses claimed they saw pieces falling from the plane just moments after it took off. Rumours have continued to fuel conspiracy theories that the crash was in fact anassassination , but no firm evidence has come to light.Dependent to a considerable extent on Sá Carneiro's personal popularity, the Democratic Alliance was unable to maintain its momentum in the wake of his death. Faced with a national crisis, the public rallied behind the incumbent President, António Ramalho Eanes, who easily defeated the Alliance candidate in the presidential election a few days later.
The airport where Sá Carneiro was heading has been named after him as
Francisco de Sá Carneiro Airport , despite objections that it would be in bad taste to name an airport after someone who died in a plane crash.In recent news, one former bodyguard has come forward and revealed that there was a payment made for sabotaging the plane which resulted in the Prime Minister's death. However he refuses to reveal who the people behind this are. In Portuguese law, after 25 years have passed and no one has been found guilty of the crime in question, the person involved can come forward without any repercussions.
Family
He was married to Isabel Maria Ferreira Nunes de Matos, born in
Porto ,Miragaia , onOctober 1 ,1936 , and had five children:
* Francisco Nunes de Matos de Sá Carneiro, unmarried and without issue
* Isabel Maria Nunes de Matos de Sá Carneiro, unmarried and without issue
* Maria Teresa Nunes de Matos de Sá Carneiro, married to Artur Manuel de Abreu Nogueira, and had two sons:
** Francisco de Sá Carneiro e Nogueira, born atSanto Ildefonso ,Porto , onNovember 9 ,1986
** Lourenço de Sá Carneiro e Nogueira, born atSanto Ildefonso ,Porto , onDecember 7 ,1988
* José Nunes de Matos de Sá Carneiro, born inCedofeita ,Porto , onApril 1 ,1963 , married atLuso ,Mealhada , onSeptember 8 ,1991 Isabel Maria Guedes de Macedo Girão, born atRamalde ,Porto , onJanuary 25 ,1965 , and had an only daughter:
** Inês de Macedo Girão de Sá Carneiro, born atSanto Ildefonso ,Porto , onMarch 21 ,1992
* Pedro Nunes de Matos de Sá Carneiro, born inPorto onSeptember 12 ,1964 , married to Maria Benedita de Matos Chaves Pinheiro Torres, of the Barons of a Torre de Pero Palha, born onMay 28 ,1967 , and had an only daughter:
** Maria Teresa Pinheiro Torres de Sá Carneiro, born inPorto onAugust 17 ,2000 Ancestors
Ancestors of Francisco Manuel Lumbrales de Sá Carneiro
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