Manuel Alegre

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Manuel Alegre

Manuel Alegre de Melo Duarte, GCL (born Águeda, 12 May 1936) is a Portuguese poet and politician, member of the Socialist Party, and an independent candidate to the Portuguese presidential election, 2006.

While studying law at the University of Coimbra, Alegre became opposed to António de Oliveira Salazar's dictatorial government. He was conscripted, and sent to the Azores and later to Angola, where his involvement in an attempt to military rebellion led him to jail. After serving his term in Luanda, he returned to Coimbra, before going into exile in 1964. As a student at the University of Coimbra he was a very active figure of the Associação Académica de Coimbra while member of the governing body, athlete and cultural agent (poetry and theatre).

He would live the next ten years in Algiers, where he was one of the main voices of a radio station directed to Portugal, Voz da Liberdade (Freedom's Voice). The distribution of his first books was forbidden by Salazar's government, so they circulated in samizdat form. Alegre returned to Portugal in 1974, one week after the Carnation Revolution.

He joined the Socialisty Party almost immediately, and was elected to Parliament in every election since 1975. He is currently one of the vice-presidents of Parliament, and sits in the President's advisory Council of State.

Several of his poems were made into songs, sung among others by Zeca Afonso and Adriano Correia de Oliveira, and played by Carlos Paredes.

One of his poems Uma flor de verde pinho won 1976's Festival RTP da Canção, who represented Portugal in Eurovision Song Contest.

In 2004, he lost to José Sócrates a bid for the party leadership.

In 2005, a statue in his honour as been erected in Coimbra.

On 24 September 2005, he announced that he would be a candidate to the Portuguese presidential election, 2006, despite his party officially supporting former president Mário Soares as a candidate. On the elections held January 22, 2006, he ended up collecting 20.7% of the valid votes (second largest amount after the elected President, Cavaco Silva, and ahead of his party's official candidate Mário Soares).