Paulo Portas

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Paulo Portas

Paulo Sacadura Cabral Portas (born 12 September 1962), commonly known kust by Paulo Portas, pron. IPA: ['paulu 'pɔɾtɐʃ], is a Portuguese politician and former Portuguese minister of State, National Defense and Sea Affairs.

Born into a bourgeois family in Lisbon, with roots in Vila Viçosa on the paternal side and agricultural aristocracy of the side of his mother, Portas grew up in a political family. His father, Nuno Portas, was a progressive, left-wing Roman Catholic. His mother, Helena Sacadura Cabral, was a conservative. Ms. Sacadura Cabral seemed to have greater influence on young Paulo. When his parents separated, Paulo stayed with his mother, while his brother Miguel Portas (a member of Bloco de Esquerda – Left Bloc) grew up with his father.

He was a militant member of the Democratic Popular Party (PPD, which is today's Social Democratic Party). He was a staunch follower of Francisco Sá Carneiro.

Portas studied law and journalism in University. He became relatively known at a very early age for an article he wrote called "Três Traições" ("Three Treasons"), which attacked three prominent politicians: António dos Santos Ramalho Eanes, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, and Mário Soares. In the article, written while a teenager, but published in a weekly newspaper, he criticised the policy of decolonisation after the fall of Estado Novo in 1974. In 1975, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe became independent. East Timor was invaded by Indonesia during the process and only became fully independent in 2001.

Before becoming a politician, Portas was a journalist. In the late 80's, he co-founded, with Miguel Esteves Cardoso, the weekly newspaper O Independente, which became famous for denouncing political scandals during the governmments of Aníbal Cavaco Silva (1985-1995). This position earned him the qualification as one of the most hated men in the country. Many social-democrat politicians never forgave him his attitude during this period and never accepted his alliance with José Manuel Durão Barroso in 2002.

In 1995 he first became an MP whith the People's Party, and would eventually break with then-leader, Manuel Monteiro, three years later, to become the party leader himself. In the Parliament (1995-2002), he created a very peculiar style of speech, using humour very often to contradict the views of the Government, then led by the socialist António Guterres.

In 1998 Portas became the leader of the People's Party, which was in two coalition governments with the Social Democratic Party, from April 2002 to March 2005.

In the 2002 legislative elections, the People's Party won 14 of 230 seats in the Portuguese Parliament, with 8.8 percent of the vote. Portas was appointed Minister of State and National Defence in the first coalition government.

In 2004, while Defence minister, he sent war ships to prevent the entrance in Portuguese waters of a Dutch ship owned by the pro-choice organization Women on Waves. This ship was intended to pick up women and take them to international waters to be informed on how to perform abortions. Under Portuguese law, abortion is only allowed under very strict circumstances. Curiously, one of the main critics of this decision was his own brother, European Parliament MP Miguel Portas. His decision was praised by both the Catholic Church and the pro-life groups in Portugal.

In June 2004, Prime Minister Durão Barroso resigned to became President of the European Comission, and was replaced by Pedro Santana Lopes, Portas becoming Minister of State, National Defence and Sea Affairs.

Santana Lopes' government had a short and attribulated existence, and after the dissolution of Parliament by president Jorge Sampaio, the coalition suffered a crushing defeat in the early elections that followed in early 2005, with the PP losing 60,000 votes and two of its fourteen seats in Parliament; Portas announced on election night that he would step down from the party's leadership.

Portas currently intervenes weekly in a night talkshow, called "O estado da Arte" (The state of the Art), where he analyses and elaborates on current mediatic issues. He will also serve as the chosen supporter of John II of Portugal in the Portuguese version of BBC's 100 greatest Britons: Grandes Portugueses.