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Portugal The Armed Forces in Political Life after 1975
The Council of the Revolution relinquished legislative
power
to the National Assembly elected in April 1976, and two
months
later executive power was handed over to General António
dos
Santos Ramalho Eanes upon his election as president. Eanes
had
served briefly as army chief of staff, and it was widely
felt
that having a military man as president would reduce the
likelihood of renewed military involvement in politics.
Eanes
would only agree to become president if he were also made
chief
of staff of the armed forces. Thus Eanes served as both
president
and chief of staff until 1981, when the two positions were
separated. In 1982 Eanes was deprived of exclusive power
to
select the chiefs of staff, who subsequently were
appointed by
the president acting upon a formal proposal of the
government.
Eanes was reelected for a second presidential term, but in
early
1986 he was succeeded by the former prime minister,
Alberto Nobre
Lopes Mario Soares, who thus became the first nonmilitary
head of
state in sixty years.
Under Article 273 of the constitution of 1976, the
armed
forces had the "historic mission of guaranteeing the
conditions
permitting the pluralist and peaceful transition...towards
democracy and socialism." Nevertheless, under Article 275,
the
armed forces were to be strictly nonpartisan and were not
to use
their arms or their ranks to "influence or impede the
selection
of a particular democratic path." The Council of the
Revolution
was retained. Its membership consisted of the president,
the
chief and deputy chief of staff and the three service
chiefs, the
prime minister if a military person, and fourteen MFA
officers.
The council advised the president on the selection of a
prime
minister and had veto power over pending legislation, as
well as
decision-making power over military regulations and
appointments.
The MFA leaders declared that they had no desire to retain
these
powers permanently but only until the democratic system
was fully
established.
The continued existence of the Council of the
Revolution
became a political issue when the council frustrated the
government by vetoing a number of laws, including those
dealing
with military reform and the denationalization of banks
and
industry. In 1982, a center-right coalition government
that had
run on a platform of constitutional change was eventually
able to
force through amendments that dissolved the Council of the
Revolution and removed the residual military powers over
the
elected civilian government. The council was replaced by
the
Higher Council of National Defense, whose powers were only
advisory and were limited to questions of national defense
and
the organization, functioning, and discipline of the armed
forces. It also confirmed officer promotions to general
rank. The
revised Article 273 of the constitution restricted the
mission of
the armed forces to "safeguarding national independence,
the
integrity of the territory, and the freedom and security
of the
population against any external aggression or threat,
while
respecting democratic institutions." In justifying these
changes,
the minister of defense explained that the government
"deemed it
inadvisable to provide legal pretexts which might one day
be
invoked to justify appeals for the intervention of the
military
in resolving internal political problems by means alien to
democracy and the Constitution."
The subordination of Portugal's military to the
civilian
authorities was codified by the National Defense Law of
1982. It
was passed in November of that year by the Assembly of the
Republic over the objections of President Eanes who feared
that
the armed forces would be politicized by allowing the
minister of
defense to choose the chief of staff and the heads of the
three
services.
In spite of the measures taken in 1982 to divest the
military
of its remaining political powers, the military retained
for a
time considerable weight in matters of security. It also
continued to feel a measure of responsibility for
maintaining
internal stability. In 1982 for example, the Association
of the
25th of April, a club dominated by left-wing former
members of
the MFA, was founded to "fight for the preservation of the
ideas"
of the revolution of April 25, 1974.
By the early 1990s, however, under a determined prime
minister and a strong minister of defense, the political
influence of the military had waned. The National Defense
Law of
1991 further strengthened civilian control. The law
increased the
power of the chief of staff and made him directly
responsible to
the minister of defense. Senior officers regarded as
troublemakers or too active politically had been eased
aside, and
Portugal's military leadership differed little from that
of other
West European nations.
Data as of January 1993
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