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Francisco Sá Carneiro

Francisco Sá Carneiro
Order: 8th Prime Minister of Portugal
(since the Carnation Revolution)
Term of Office January 3, 1979 - December 4, 1980
Predecessor: Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo
Successor: Diogo Freitas do Amaral
Date of Birth June 19, 1934
Place of Birth: Oporto
Date of Death December 4, 1980
Place of Death: Camarate
Political Party: Social Democratic


Francisco Manuel Lumbrales de Sá Carneiro (Oporto July 19 1934 - Camarate December 4 1980, was Prime Minister of Portugal for eleven months in 1980.

A lawyer by traning, he became a member of the puppet National Assembly , where he became one of the leaders of the "Liberal Wing", which attempted to work for the gradual transformation of António de Oliveira Salazar's dictatorship into a normal Western European democracy.

In May 1974, a month after the Carnation Revolution, Sá Carneiro founded the Social Democratic Party (PSD), together with Francisco Pinto Balsemão and José Magalhães Mota , and became its secretary-general. He was minister without portfolio in a number of provisional governments, and was elected as a deputy to the Constitutional Assembly the next year.

In 1976, he was elected to the Assembly of the Republic . In November 1977, he resigned his office as president of the party, only to be elected again to that office the next year.

In the general election of late 1979, he led the Democratic Alliance , a coalition of his Social Democratic Party, the right-wing Democratic and Social Centre Party, and two smaller parties, to victory. He was subsequently appointed Prime Minister on 3 January 1980, and formed Portugal's first majority government since the Carnation Revolution of 1974.

He died when his plane crashed into a building in Camarate, soon after taking-off from Lisbon airport, when heading to Oporto to take party in a rally for the coalition presidential candidate, António Soares Carneiro . Eyewitness said they saw pieces falling from the plane a moment after takeoff. Rumours have continued to fuel conspiracy theories that the crash was the result of a terrorist attack, but no firm evidence has come to light.

The aiport of Oporto, to which he was heading, has been named after him, despite objections that it would be in bad taste to name an airport after someone who died in a plane crash.


Preceded by:
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo
Prime Minister of Portugal
1979 -1980
Succeeded by:
Diogo Freitas do Amaral




Last updated: 11-07-2004 13:52:02