Portugal Introduction
Figure 1. Administrative Divisions, 1992
ON APRIL 25, 1974, scores of junior Portuguese Army
officers
staged a coup d'état that in a manner of hours toppled the
authoritarian regime that had ruled their country for
nearly half
a century. The virtually bloodless coup was followed by
what
became known to the world as the Revolution of 1974 as
Portugal's
archaic and repressive governing system was swept away in
a
period of political and social turbulence. The young
officers,
members of the secret Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das
Forças
Armadas--MFA), wished to end the wars their country had
been
fighting in its African colonies since the early 1960s.
Their
modest aim of changing Portugal's political leadership,
however,
let loose long pent-up social and political energies that
soon
turned into a veritable revolution and kept Portugal in
the
headlines of the world's newspapers for the next eighteen
months.
A nervous Western Europe looked on as Portugal's governing
and
financial elites fled the country or were exiled, as a
variety of
forces vied for dominance and the Stalinist Portuguese
Communist
Party (Partido Comunista Português--PCP) seemed close to
seizing
power, as leading banks and businesses were nationalized,
and as
large estates were collectivized by landless peasants.
The revolution eventually played itself out. Many of
its
feared consequences, such as a communist takeover or a
civil war,
did not occur. Moreover, many of the actions, for example,
nationalizations and collectivizations that were
implemented
during the revolution, had been reversed to a great extent
by
early 1993, and the serious damage done to the overall
economy
was gradually being repaired. The economy grew rapidly in
the
second half of the 1980s and continued to show respectable
growth
rates in the early 1990s. As another indication of
improving
economic health, Portugal's currency, the escudo, was
strong
enough to be placed in the exchange rate mechanism of the
European Monetary System (see Glossary) in April 1992.
The revolution's legacy also had a positive side,
however,
and nearly two decades after the sequence of events that
began in
April 1974, some remarkable achievements could be seen.
After
centuries of isolation and backwardness, Portugal had
become an
fully integral part of Western Europe through its
membership in the European Community
(EC--see Glossary).
In the first half of
1992, Portugal assumed the presidency of the EC and
fulfilled the
obligations of this office in a professional manner. Even
more
significant, perhaps, were the establishment and
consolidation of
a system of parliamentary democracy. After a troubled
start, this
democracy, watched a had given the country a strong and
competent
government able to bring about peaceful change.
Portugal has a glorious past. It is the oldest European
nation-state, having attained its present extent by about
1200,
centuries before neighboring Spain or France became
unified
states. In the early decades of the fourteenth century,
Portugal
began a period of exploration that within a hundred years
gave it
an empire that literally spanned the globe.
The wealth the empire brought mainland Portugal had
woeful
long-term consequences, however. The country's leaders
turned
away from Europe and its political and technological
advances.
Portugal's economy battened on the colonies, rather than
developing through competition with other European
countries.
Because Portugal was too small a country to defend its
extensive
possessions, much of the empire was soon lost. Even into
the
second half of the twentieth century, however, enough of
the
empire remained that Portugal continued to exist somewhat
outside
the world economy. The colonies provided the mainland with
foodstuffs and raw materials and were a captive market for
low-
quality Portuguese manufactures.
A greater threat to the long-term well-being of the
Portuguese people than the country's backward economy,
however,
was perhaps the state of its social and political
institutions.
Long ruled by a tiny oligarchy supported by the military
and a
rigid authoritarian church untouched by the Reformation,
the mass
of the Portuguese population was passive and ignorant. The
nation's wealth was reserved for a few, most of whom lived
in
Lisbon. The small middle class was docile and without
experience
in government.
The European Enlightenment had a powerful exponent of
its
ideas in the Marquês de Pombal, who attempted a
thorough-going
reform of Portugal in the third quarter of the eighteenth
century. His reforms were paternalistically enforced from
above,
however, and after his fall from power were soon reversed.
The
early nineteenth century saw the fashioning of a
constitutional
monarchy, but parliamentary politics was soon a cynical
rotation
of public office among members of a small elite in Lisbon.
Most
of the population labored neglected and illiterate in the
countryside.
A more serious attempt at parliamentary democracy
occurred in
1910 when a republic, the so-called First Republic, was
proclaimed. Suffrage was restricted, however, and most
Portuguese
were without the right to vote. The small urban middle
class that
was active in the republic's affairs formed into numerous
personalistic parties that soon showed themselves
incapable of
governing. The dozens of inefficient governments in the
republic's brief life of sixteen years did not win many
Portuguese to the cause of parliamentary democracy.
Anticlerical
laws also alienated many, as did frequent instances of
corruption.
When a coup by junior military officers in 1926 put an
end to
the First Republic, few regretted the death of Portuguese
parliamentary democracy. But no member of the military was
able
to effectively direct Portugal's affairs, and a young
economist,
António de Oliveira Salazar, gradually came to govern the
country. First as minister of finance, then as prime
minister
beginning in 1932, he brought a new order and stability to
the
country. In 1933 an authoritarian, traditionalist, statist
system, the New State (Estado Novo), was inaugurated to
protect
Portugal from both Western liberal democracy and
communism.
Salazar directed this regime until he was incapacitated
by an
accident in 1968. He was succeeded by Marcello José das
Neves
Caetano, who governed until April 1974. The governing
system they
ruled attempted to shield Portugal from such modern
problems as
labor strife, rapacious wealth, and departure from
traditional
concepts of personal morality. Salazar outlawed labor
unions,
replacing them with organizations that were supposed to
bring
labor and capital together in such a way that class
conflict was
avoided. He banned all political parties except one
official
party, rigorously controlled the press, and carefully
supervised
the country's few schools. Mindful of the social changes a
modernizing economy engenders, he even attempted to arrest
commercial change and stop the expansion of the country's
small
industrial sector. An extensive system of informants and
an
efficient secret police easily countered the regime's few
opponents.
Portugal's authoritarian regime lasted for nearly half
a
century. It loosened its strictures on the economy
somewhat after
1959, and the Portuguese economy grew at a very rapid rate
until
1974. It permitted a few elections in which dissenting
voices
were heard but to no lasting effect. The press was allowed
a
slightly greater degree of freedom in the early 1970s, but
otherwise the regime remained firmly in control.
The sudden collapse of the regime in April 1974
surprised
everyone. Also unexpected were the engineers of its
collapse,
young officers who served in the military, long the
regime's
chief support. These officers were brought to their
extreme
action by the regime's stubborn determination to retain
Portugal's African colonies. Having served on the front
lines and
seen the human costs of the wars firsthand, the officers
knew
that defeating the strong rebel movements in these
colonies was
beyond Portugal's power. They staged the April coup to
stop
further futile bloodshed. Their simple coup became a
revolution.
The sudden and unexpected collapse of the regime
created a
political vacuum. Decades of political repression had left
the
Portuguese people with no practical experience of
governing
themselves. The widespread hatred of the regime barred the
government's major figures from any active role in
politics. A
few younger politicians active within the regime were seen
as
sufficiently untainted to continue to be involved in
public
affairs. Their experience allowed them to assume
leadership
positions in several parties located on the moderate right
of the
political spectrum. Francisco Sá Carneiro took control of
the
Popular Democratic Party (Partido Popular
Democrático--PPD), and
Diogo Freitas do Amaral, a law professor, came to head the
Party
of the Social Democratic Center (Partido do Centro
Democrático
Social--CDS). Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares, who had
long
opposed the regime and had endured imprisonment and exile
because
of his open resistance, returned to Portugal within days
of the
coup to lead the newly reestablished Socialist Party
(Partido
Socialista--PS). Communists had been active underground
for
decades under the leadership of the Stalinist Álvaro
Cunhal, who
directed the PCP from Eastern Europe. Like Soares, Cunhal
also
returned to Portugal immediately after the coup and
plunged into
the turbulent politics that filled the capital's streets
and
squares. Because the PCP alone among political parties had
a
sizeable organized infrastructure in place, it occupied a
political space greater than its actual strength.
Political power was by no means limited to these
parties,
which in the first months of the revolution had marginal
roles,
but was held by a broad variety of groups. Numerous
splinter
groups to the left of the PCP were soon active and made
themselves known through street demonstrations. The PCP-
controlled labor union Intersindical emerged from its
semi-
underground position and worked alongside the often
independent
Workers' Committees, which quickly began taking control of
numerous factories and businesses. The MFA, with its
select
military force, the Continental Operations Command
(Comando
Operacional do Continente--COPCON), wielded much power, as
well.
The most visible politician of the first months of the
revolution
was General António de Spínola, who became the president
of the
country's interim government.
Given this array of forces, there was no one center of
power.
Groups formed temporary alliances, giant street rallies
attempted
to influence the direction of politics, the PCP placed its
people
in many key positions in the country's public
institutions, and
political parties to the right of the PCP attempted to
prevent a
communist takeover. Given its nature as an organized and
disciplined force, the military was the single most
important
element during the revolution, although most officers were
not
radicals.
A series of provisional governments was formed that
with time
became increasingly leftist and dominated by radical
military
officers. An attempted rightist coup by Spínola in March
1975
caused a leftist countermovement, a wave of
nationalizations of
banks and other businesses, and the seizure of many large
farms
in southern Portugal. Attempts to bring the revolution to
the
north backfired, and that region's smallholders offered
the first
successful resistance to the revolutionary left's program
to turn
Portugal into a socialist state.
Another indication that the country as a whole did not
wish a
revolutionary government was the April 1975 election of
the
Constituent Assembly, in which parties to the right of the
PCP
had an overwhelming majority. The assembly had no
legislative
powers but had as its sole purpose the drafting of a
constitution
for a democratic government. It began this work against
the
backdrop of an increasingly radical revolution.
During the summer of 1975, splits appeared within the
MFA
itself. Moderate elements favoring a political program
akin to
Scandinavian social democracy gained the upper hand in the
organization, deposed the most radical of all the
provisional
governments in September, and put in place the last of
these six
governments, one destined to last until the first
constitutional
government came into existence in July 1976. An attempted
coup in
November 1975 by extremists was put down by a
counterattack led
by moderates. The arrest of several hundred radical
officers and
the dissolution of COPCON ended the radical stage of the
Revolution of 1974.
The military remained active in politics, however.
Although
the African wars ended when the colonies were granted
independence in 1975, elements of the military were
determined to
defend the accomplishments of the revolution. The MFA
arranged
with the drafters of the constitution that the military
would
retain guardian rights over the new democracy, ensuring
that it
remained true to "the spirit of the revolution." The
constitution
of 1976 provided for a strong president who, with the help
of a
military-dominated Council of the Revolution, could veto
any
legislation that reversed such revolutionary actions as
the
extensive nationalizations of 1975. General António dos
Santos
Ramalho Eanes, the hero of the November 1975 countercoup,
was
elected the new democracy's first president in 1976. An
austere
man of unquestioned integrity, Eanes could be trusted to
preserve
the revolution's gains.
The first regular parliamentary elections were held in
April
1976. The winner was the PS with 35 percent of the vote,
far
ahead of its competitors, but not enough for an absolute
majority
in the new unicameral parliament, the Assembly of the
Republic.
With its leader Soares as prime minister, the PS formed a
minority government that governed for eighteen months.
When it
fell because of a motion of censure, the PS formed a
governing
coalition with the Christian democrat CDS that lasted
another
year. Enormous social and economic problems, including the
return
of 600,000 Portuguese settlers and demobilized soldiers
from
Africa, combined with factionalism and personal rivalries,
were
the undoing of these first two constitutional governments.
Eanes
then appointed a series of nonpartisan caretaker
governments
composed of experts and technocrats in the hope that they
could
better deal with pressing issues and govern until the next
parliamentary elections mandated by the constitution for
1980.
Each of the three caretaker governments failed, and
Eanes was
forced to call for early elections in December 1979, even
though
parliamentary elections would still have to be held the
following
year. The Democratic Alliance (Aliança Democrática--AD), a
coalition of the PPD--now called the Social Democrat Party
(Partido Social Democrata--PSD)--the CDS, and several
smaller
groups, won the election, but without a majority. the
coalition
formed a government with the forceful and charismatic PSD
leader
Sá Carneiro as prime minister. The AD won the October 1980
election, as well, and governed Portugal until 1983. New
elections were called that year because the AD, without
the
leadership of Sá Carneiro, who had died in a December 1980
plane
crash, had disintegrated, and no effective government
could be
formed.
During its time in power, however, the AD coalition had
effected some far-reaching constitutional amendments that
strengthened the system of parliamentary government. With
the
support of the PS, which gave the AD the required
two-thirds
majorities, constitutional amendments were passed in 1982
that
weakened the power of the president and strengthened both
the
prime minister and the legislature. The presidency
remained an
essential governing institution, but the balance of
political
power had shifted to favor the cabinet and the
legislature, as in
most other Western democracies. A further amendment ended
the
military's guardianship over the new democracy. The
amendment
eliminated the Council of the Revolution, through which
the
military had frequently vetoed legislation, and replaced
it with
the Constitutional Court that functioned in the same
manner as
similar bodies in other parliamentary democracies.
President
Eanes, easily reelected in late 1980 for a second
five-year term,
signed the amendments into law, although he opposed them
because
they reduced the president's powers and returned the
military to
the barracks.
After the 1983 parliamentary elections, the PS formed a
coalition government with the PSD. The huge losses
stemming from
the many firms nationalized during the revolution, the
enormous
expansion of the numbers of those employed by the state,
the
effects of the two oil-price hikes of the 1970s, and the
flight
of much entrepreneurial talent from Portugal had left the
economy
in a desperate state. Inflation was as high as 30 percent
a year,
and many workers had real earnings lower than those of the
early
1970s. In addition, many companies were in such financial
straits
that wages were often months in arrears.
No government had been able to deal with these economic
problems in a meaningful way. The AD and PS combination
that had
effected some vital constitutional changes was not able to
amend
the constitutional provisions that declared the
revolution's
nationalizations irreversible. In addition, the country's
labor
laws in essence guaranteed employees jobs for life and
made
rational deployment of labor nearly impossible. Given
these
circumstances, the PS-PSD government had to make some very
difficult decisions and became unpopular as the economy
worsened.
The alliance, troubled also by personal rivalries,
collapsed in
early 1985.
The PSD began its political ascent in the 1985
parliamentary
elections. As the senior partner in the coalition and with
its
leader Soares as prime minister, the PS was blamed by
voters for
the failures of the fallen government; it polled only 20.8
percent of the vote, compared with 36.3 percent in 1983.
Despite
its participation in the government, the PSD won more
votes than
ever before, 29.9 percent, and for the first time was the
party
with the most parliamentary seats. Much of the PSD's
success was
due to its new leader, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who waged a
clever
campaign and presented his party in a new light. His
personal
qualities of austerity, probity, and competence appealed
to many
Portuguese, who saw in him, an economist and former
minister of
finance, someone who could deal with the country's serious
problems.
Cavaco Silva formed a minority single-party government
with
himself as prime minister and managed to remain in power
for
nearly a year and a half. He was fortunate in that painful
economic decisions made by the previous government began
to bear
fruit during his time in office. Portugal's accession to
the EC
at the beginning of 1986 also benefited the country; the
first of
the organization's extensive aid packages began to improve
Portugal's backward infrastructure almost immediately.
When a
motion of censure brought down the PSD government in the
spring
of 1987, Soares, elected president in early 1986, decided
to call
new elections in July 1987 rather than form another weak
single-
party or coalition government.
The improving economy and the feeling on the part of
many
Portuguese that the PSD was taking their country in the
right
direction allowed the Party to win an absolute
parliamentary
majority in the national elections of 1987. The 50.2
percent of
the vote gave the party a solid parliamentary majority,
the first
in the new democracy, and permitted the formation of a
strong
single-party government. Cavaco Silva's government also
became
the first to serve out the entire four-year legislative
term. In
1991 Cavaco Silva led his party to a second victory in
which it
again won more than 50 percent of the vote and 135 seats
in the
230-seat parliament.
For many observers, the PSD's electoral successes and
the
stability of the Cavaco Silva government indicated that
Portugal's new democracy, the Second Republic as it is
often
called, had at last taken root. During the first decade of
the
new political system, there were numerous weak
governments, and
four national elections were called because no effective
governing coalitions were available. This instability
caused some
observers to fear that Portugal's second attempt at
parliamentary
democracy might eventually prove as unsuccessful as was
the First
Republic.
The Second Republic was more fortunate than the First
Republic in several regards, however. Despite its serious
problems, Portugal had come to enjoy a much greater
prosperity
and a higher level of education than in the first decades
of the
century. As a result, the Portuguese were better able to
understand public affairs than in the past. In addition,
the new
government possessed a greater legitimacy because it was
based on
universal suffrage and high rates of voter participation.
Portugal was also lucky to have a number of capable
politicians
committed to establishing parliamentary democracy. Also
vital was
the willingness of the military to abide by the laws of
the new
republic. All of these factors contributed to the eventual
success of the new political system.
However healthy Portuguese democracy was by the 1990s,
it
still exhibited some short comings. Factionalism, whether
caused
by ideology or personal ambition, was still noticeable.
Strict
party discipline ensured a degree of party unity, but
party
"barons" sometimes put personal welfare before that of
their
parties. Small parties centered around an individual were
less
common than in the past, but in the 1985 elections a big
winner
was a short-lived group pledged to President Eanes. The
parties
sometimes overshadowed the Assembly of the Republic as
centers of
political power, but internal reforms, increased support
staff,
and an evolving institutional ethos had increased that
body's
performance to the benefit of parliamentary democracy.
By the early 1990s, Portuguese democracy appeared to be
moving to a two-party system consisting of the PSD and the
PS.
The two parties together won nearly 80 percent of the vote
in the
1991 national elections and between them controlled 90
percent of
the seats in parliament. As of early 1993, there was no
reason to
think this dominance would be upset in the near future.
The PSD, in power since early 1980 through coalitions
with
parties first to its right, then to its left, and then
through
both minority and majority single-party governments,
gradually
came to occupy a large place in the middle of the
political
spectrum. Generally, the PSD held views similar to those
advocated by liberal Republicans in the United States.
Aníbal
Cavaco Silva, the party's leader since 1985, remained very
popular with Portuguese voters, and the government he
formed
after the October 1991 elections was expected to remain in
power
for the entire legislative period scheduled to end in late
1995.
Portugal's other leading political party, the PS, had
lost
its early dominance but far outdistanced its nearest
rivals, the
PCP and the CDS. The PS had been troubled by leadership
problems
and inept campaigns Since Soares resigned as its head to
campaign
for the presidency in the mid-1980s. However it renamed
dominant
in many areas and won the 1989 local elections. The PS had
gradually moved to the center of the political spectrum,
having
long abandoned the fierce advocacy of socialism it held in
the
mid-1970s. Indeed, by the early 1990s, its positions on
main
issues were often hard to distinguish from those of the
PSD.
To the right of the PSD was the Christian democratic
CDS.
Long led by its founder Diogo Freitas do Amaral, who
nearly won
the presidency in 1986, the CDS had seen a steady erosion
of
support in national elections during the 1980s. The party
was
last part of a government in early 1983, and only a
weakening of
the PSD seemed likely to bring it back into power as a
coalition
partner.
The only major political party that was not regarded as
a
wholehearted supporter of liberal democracy was the PCP.
Parties
to its right never saw the PCP as a suitable coalition
partner,
however, and after the constitution of 1976 became
effective, it
was never part of any cabinet. The PCP had many supporters
in
some southern areas, both rural and industrial, but rival
parties
were making headway even in these traditional strongholds.
The
PCP remained resolutely Stalinist even into the 1990s,
expelling
members who sought to reform it. The PCP's share of votes
declined during the 1980s, and by the 1991 election it had
lost
half its support. This decline and an aging membership
suggested
that the PCP was condemned to political marginality.
Just as the first decade of the Second Republic was
marked by
frequent political missteps and failures, it was also a
very
difficult one for Portugal's economy, and in some years
there
were real declines in both wages and production. This
situation
was a painful contrast to the accelerated rates of growth
between
1960 and 1973 when the Salazar-Caetano regime had allowed
partial
economic liberalization and increased foreign investment.
Growth
ended, however, when the revolution's extensive
nationalizations
and the subsequent mismanagement of the government's large
holdings were combined with the global recession caused by
the
oil price hikes of 1973 and 1979.
Austerity measures undertaken in the mid-1980s and
large
transfers of financial aid to Portugal by the EC led to a
sustained period of growth in the latter half of the 1980s
and
early 1990s that was among the best among member countries
of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD--see Glossary).
Growth was further strengthened by substantial
direct
foreign investment (US$15 billion in the 1989-92 period)
and the
government's sales of many companies nationalized during
the
revolution (nearly US$6 billion in the same period).
However
favorable these trends were, during the remainder of the
1990s
the resourcefulness of Portugal's businesspeople and
politicians
would be seriously challenged by long-term structural
problems in
Portugal's economy and its complete opening by 1995 to
competition from more efficient rivals in the EC.
Portugal's agricultural sector was only one-half to
one-
fourth as productive as those of most other EC member
states,
despite US$2 billion of EC funds that had been invested in
modernization efforts between 1986 and the early 1990s.
Although
nearly one-fifth of the work force was engaged in
agriculture in
the early 1990s, as much as one-half of the food the
country
consumed had to be imported. The small fragmented farms of
the
north were probably too small for efficient farming.
Progress had
been made in introducing modern methods and equipment to
the
large estates in the south, many of which had been
collective
farms for a time, but the sector remained overstaffed and
backward as a whole.
The industrial sector consisted of three components:
modern
foreign-owned plants that produced a large variety of
sophisticated products; a large, generally unprofitable
state-
owned sector, which was often concentrated in heavy
industry; and
privately owned, often quite small and labor-intensive
manufacturing firms that had managed to survive
international
competition because of protective tariffs and low wages.
Modern
high-technology companies were likely to continue to
prosper in
the 1990s. The nationalized sector was being privatized by
the
Cavaco Silva government, and those companies that appeared
to
have a promising future found buyers. Portugal's privately
owned
companies, active in textiles, shoe manufacturing, food
processing, and similar activities, were likely to find
the 1990s
difficult. Often too small to purchase or use modern
equipment
and unable to learn the latest managerial methods, a good
number
of these firms might well not survive the decade.
Portugal's service sector was also in the throes of
meeting
the challenges of the European
single market (see Glossary).
Tourism remained vital to the country and was being
upgraded. The
financial sector was being transformed by many foreign
firms that
had set up companies in Portugal. The many banks the
government
had nationalized in 1975 were being sold off at a brisk
rate in
the early 1990s. Portuguese banking as a whole was
overstaffed
and underautomated, but foreign competition was forcing
the
sector to strive for greater efficiency.
The government also attempted to deal with legacies of
both
the Salazar regime and the revolutionary period when it
proposed
streamlining the state bureaucracy and reforming labor
laws.
Persistence was needed to deal with the deadening effects
of a
too large and unresponsive government bureaucracy, which
during
Salazar's rule had come to regulate much of everyday life
and
then was expanded in the revolutionary mid-1970s. The
bureaucracy
took much of the state's resources and through extensive
regulation hindered ordinary citizens in their dealings
with
state authorities and firms in the conduct of their
business.
Labor laws passed during the revolution made dismissing
employees
very difficult. Attempts to reform employment methods had
had
only moderate success and foundered on union resistance.
Companies circumvented some of these laws by resorting to
fixed-
term work contracts, but personnel management practices
still had
not been put on a wholly rational footing as of the early
1990s.
Portugal needed a well-trained work force in order to
fare
well in an increasingly competitive world economy. More
Portuguese were being educated than ever before, even at
the
university level, which long had been reserved for a tiny
elite.
It was estimated, however, that in the early 1990s up to
20
percent of Portuguese over the age of fifteen were
illiterate.
This illiteracy rate represented a striking improvement
over the
1930 rate of 68 percent but was still much higher than the
European average. Even at the beginning of the 1990s, most
Portuguese had had only five or six years of schooling,
and the
percentage of children attending school beyond the sixth
grade
was below the EC average by a wide margin. Morale in the
teaching
profession was also very low because teachers, like most
state
employees, were very poorly paid. EC financial transfers
to
Portugal to raise the standards of the country's education
were
significant, but much remained to be done before
Portuguese
schooling corresponded to that of other West European
countries.
The severity of the education system's problems was
matched
by the serious problems found throughout Portugal's social
welfare and health systems. A comprehensive social welfare
system
had been established by law in the second half of the
1970s but
never fully realized, and benefit payments and pensions
were set
at a very low level. Significant progress had been made in
reducing infant mortality and dealing with some other
health
problems, but public health care was not generally up to
West
European standards. The country's backwardness when
measured
against the rest of the EC, with the exception of Greece,
was
striking and could be seen as a legacy of Portugal's long
isolation from Europe and the repression of the Salazar
regime.
Given the advance made in the two decades after 1974,
however, Portuguese had reasons to rejoice. Poverty
remained,
especially in rural areas, and housing was frequently
inadequate,
but the population as a whole lived better than ever
before. The
traditional necessity to emigrate to find employment that
had
forced millions of Portuguese to leave their country,
especially
in the 1960s when Paris became the second largest
Portuguese
city, had lessened greatly. Many Portuguese could now find
employment at home, if not in rural regions where
emigration was
still the rule, then along the coasts where most
Portuguese had
come to live. The improved economy also gave young
Portuguese a
greater choice in occupations and a chance for social
mobility.
A modernizing society also presented Portuguese with
opportunities for a better life. Portuguese society was
more
varied than it had been during the Salazar period. The
free media
brought the outside world to the Portuguese and engendered
a
greater liberality in how people lived. Divorce was
permitted in
the old regime, but abortion not legalized until 1984,
despite
the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church, which had
become
less influential. More Portuguese women worked outside the
home.
If professional opportunities were not yet as great as
those
enjoyed by women in Northern Europe, Portuguese women were
freer
than their mothers. Until 1969, for example, Portuguese
women who
were not heads of households had to have the permission of
their
husbands or male relatives to obtain passports. In the new
Portugal, in contrast, a government agency existed with
the
purpose of preventing discrimination against women.
The greatest achievement of the Portuguese people since
1974,
however, and the one which had allowed and encouraged
other
positive developments and permitted confidence about the
future,
was the consolidation of a system of parliamentary
democracy, the
first successful such system in the country's history. It
was
hoped that a modern political system responsive to the
people's
needs would allow the Portuguese to prepare for the next
century
in a united Europe.
October 9, 1993
Eric Solsten
Data as of January 1993
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