Pedro Santana Lopes

For other people named Pedro Lopes, see Pedro Lopes (disambiguation).
Pedro Santana Lopes
GCC

During campaign in 2005
116th Prime Minister of Portugal
Election: 2005
In office
17 July 2004 – 12 March 2005
(7 months and 23 days)
President Jorge Sampaio
Preceded by José Manuel Barroso
Succeeded by José Sócrates
Mayor of Lisbon
In office
15 March 2005 – 28 October 2005
Preceded by Carmona Rodrigues
Succeeded by Carmona Rodrigues
In office
6 January 2002 – 16 July 2004
Preceded by João Soares
Succeeded by Carmona Rodrigues
President of the Social Democratic Party
In office
29 June 2004 – 22 February 2005
Deputy José Luís Arnaut
Miguel Relvas
Preceded by José Manuel Barroso
Succeeded by Luís Marques Mendes
Mayor of Figueira da Foz
In office
January 1998 – January 2001
Preceded by Aguiar de Carvalho
Succeeded by António Duarte Silva
Secretary of State of Culture
In office
24 July 1989 – 31 October 1991
Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva
Preceded by Teresa Gouveia
Succeeded by Manuel Frexes
Secretary of State to the Prime Minister
In office
6 November 1985 – 17 August 1987
Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva
Preceded by Fernando Faria de Oliveira
Alfredo Barroso
Succeeded by Luís Marques Mendes
Personal details
Born (1956-06-29) 29 June 1956
Lisbon, Portugal
Political party Social Democratic Party
Children Gonçalo
Duarte
José
Carolina
Diogo
Education Lyceum Father António Vieira
Alma mater University of Lisbon
Profession Lawyer, professor
Religion Roman Catholicism

Pedro Miguel de Santana Lopes GCC (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpedɾu sɐ̃ˈtɐnɐ ˈlɔpɨʃ]; born 29 June 1956), a Portuguese lawyer and politician, was Prime Minister of Portugal from 2004 to 2005. He is a former Member of the Portuguese Parliament.

Background

Santana Lopes was born in Lisbon, Campo Grande, to Aníbal Luís Lopes (b. Lisbon, São Sebastião da Pedreira, 17 February 1933), a company administrator whose maternal grandfather's maternal grandfather was a relative of João Brandão,[1] and wife (m. Lisbon, São Sebastião da Pedreira, 27 February 1954) Maria Ivone Risques Pereira de Santana (Lisbon, São Sebastião da Pedreira, 3 May 1931 – Lisbon, 23 March 1999), a half-great-great-great-niece of the 2nd Baron of Brissos.

Biography

He graduated as a Licentiate in Law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, where he was Leader of the Student Union, becoming a lawyer. He joined the Portuguese Social Democratic Party (PSD) in 1976, and has remained a member ever since. There he started his career as a Deputy to the Assembly of the Republic.

In 1979, he became a legal advisor to Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro, and has identified himself as a follower of his for all his political life.

In 1986, he became Assistant State Secretary to Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva, an office he left the next year to lead to PSD list to the European Parliament, where he remained for two years of his five-year-term.

In 1991, Cavaco Silva appointed him to the government post of Secretary of State for Culture. Leaving office, he successively ran for, and won, 43rd President of Sporting Clube de Portugal (1995–1996),[2] winning the 1994/1995 Taça de Portugal in soccer. Afterwards, he would become Mayor of Figueira da Foz in 1998 and Mayor of Lisbon in 2002. During this period he also earned a living as a sports and political commentator and founded a weekly newspaper, Semanário.

When José Manuel Durão Barroso resigned in July 2004 to take up the Presidency of the European Commission, Santana Lopes became the President of PSD. As his party was the major partner in the coalition government at the time, he was nominated Prime Minister of the XVI Constitutional Government, suspending his term as Mayor of Lisbon. After several controversies, President Jorge Sampaio, a member of the main opposing party, dissolved the parliament, which led to his resignation as Prime Minister of Portugal. He then returned to practicing law.

Santana Lopes currently heads Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa [3] and does political commentary with former European Commissioner António Vitorino.

Prime minister

The leadership of Santana Lopes was made difficult by a number of inherited economic and political problems. When his party first took power, the country’s economy was in a poor state, with a rising government-spending deficit, partially because of policies focused on public expenditure by the previous governments (led by António Guterres of the Socialist Party) and the early 2000s recession. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, "Portugal became the first country to breach the EU's 'excessive deficit' rule with a budget deficit of 4.4% of GDP in 2001, well above the 3% of GDP ceiling set by the EU's Stability and Growth Pact."[4] The situation inherited by Santana Lopes was a little better, as the previous government led by Barroso had been able to comply with European Union directives regarding the deficit by selling State assets.

Santana Lopes himself failed to gain a reputation as a competent Prime Minister. His unusual rise to power, as Barroso's successor rather than by election, contributed to these difficulties. Although his appointment was in fact constitutional, he was not a Member of Parliament but only a municipal leader, as the Mayor of Lisbon.

The short career of Santana Lopes as Prime Minister began with some members of government being shuffled between departments on the same afternoon as the government was being inaugurated. His Minister of Defense Paulo Portas looked surprised during the ceremony when he was announced as the Minister for National Defense and Sea Affairs. Portas' look of surprise when the name of his office was announced was broadcast live on television.

Santana Lopes' period in office was also marked by chaos in the allocation of teachers to schools (more than a month after classes officially started, and resulting from alleged incompetence of the IT provider (designated during the previous Government); the problem was swiftly solved by another small provider), and by claims of pressure exerted on the press, including arranging for the replacement of the information director of the public television channel RTP, and pressing private television channel TVI to tone down the criticism of him by a political commentator, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, a former leader of his own party, who consequently left the channel.

The government of Santana Lopes received its death sentence on 30 November 2004 when President Jorge Sampaio, a member of the opposing party, announced that he was calling an early Parliament election for February 2005, from which a new government would be formed, after Henrique Chaves, a Santana Lopes loyalist, resigned after four days as Minister for Sport, claiming that Santana Lopes lacked "loyalty and truth".

Santana Lopes announced the resignation of the government on 11 December so that his Government would assume just a caretaker role until the election. He went on to be defeated in the 2005 parliamentary elections in Portugal; the election was won by the Socialist Party led by José Sócrates, with whom Santana Lopes had debated every Sunday for one year on the public television station, RTP. Santana Lopes left the party leadership two days later. He then returned to the Parliament to lead PSD Parliamentary Group between 2007 and 2008.

In June 2010, he was awarded the Order of Christ (Portugal) by President Aníbal Cavaco Silva for his work as Prime Minister of Portugal, one of his main critics when he was in office.

Electoral history

Municipal elections for Lisbon, 2001

Ballot: 16 December 2001
Candidate Votes %
PPD-PSD/PPM
131,135
41.98
PS/PCP/PEV
130,279
41.7
CDS-PP
23,584
7.55
BE
11877
3.8
PCTP-MRPP
2419
0.77
PH
1352
0.43
MPT
1347
0.43
PNR
652
0.21
Blank Ballots
5902
1.89
Invalid Ballots
3844
1.23
Turnout
45,444
58.95

Bibliography

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Raízes e Memórias, Associação Portuguesa de Genealogia, Lisboa
  2. ↑ http://www.sporting.pt/English/Club/club_presidents.asp
  3. ↑ http://www.dn.pt%2Fportugal%2Finterior%2Fsantana-vai-para-provedor-da-santa-casa-da-misericordia-1949872.html&usg=AFQjCNFfJKX1g7CSE7HS5jfgeXZ1m2mRAQ&sig2=9_CmjTcx7e42SKsBvnu6-A
  4. ↑ Economist Intelligence Unit, 11 January 2005
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