Portugal is one of the oldest states in Europe. It traces its modern history to A.D. 1140 when, following a 9-year rebellion against the King of Leon-Castile, Afonso Henriques, the Count of Portugal, became the country's first king, Afonso I. Afonso and his successors expanded their territory southward, capturing Lisbon from the Moors in 1147. The approximate present-day boundaries were secured in 1249 by Afonso III.

By 1337, Portuguese explorers had reached the Canary Islands. Inspired by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), explorers such as Vasco da Gama, Bartolomeu Dias, and Pedro Alvares Cabral made explorations from Brazil to India and Japan. Portugal eventually became a massive colonial empire with vast territories in Africa and Latin America (Brazil) and outposts in the Far East (East Timor, Macau, Goa).

Dynastic disputes led in 1580 to the succession of Philip II of Spain to the Portuguese throne. A revolt ended Spanish hegemony in 1640, and the House of Braganca was established as Portugal's ruling family, lasting until the establishment of the Portuguese Republic in 1910.

During the next 16 years, intense political rivalries and economic instability undermined newly established democratic institutions. Responding to pressing economic problems, a military government, which had taken power in 1926, named a prominent university economist, Dr. Antonio Salazar finance minister in 1928, and prime minister in 1932. For the next 42 years, Salazar and his successor, Marcelo Caetano, appointed prime minister in 1968, ruled Portugal as an authoritarian "corporate" state. Unlike most other European countries, Portugal did not play a combatant role in World War II. It was a charter member of NATO, joining in 1949.

In the early 1960s, wars with independence movements in Portugal's African territories began to drain labor and wealth from Portugal. Professional dissatisfaction within the military, coupled with a growing sense of the futility of the African conflicts, led to the formation of the clandestine "Armed Forces Movement" in 1973.

The downfall of the Portuguese corporate state came on April 25, 1974, when the Armed Forces Movement seized power in a nearly bloodless coup and established a provisional military government.

Gen. Antonio de Spinola was installed as president after the coup but resigned in September 1974 to protest the growing power exercised by communist and leftist forces. He was replaced by another general, Francisco da Costa Gomes, who retained a procommunist, Gen. Vasco dos Santos Goncalves, as prime minister. On March 11, 1975, a rebellion by rightist military officers failed, and former President Spinola fled the country.

On April 25 (now Portugal's national day), the first anniversary of the 1974 coup, Portuguese voters chose a Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution. The vote gave an overwhelming majority of 72% to candidates of three democratic political parties: the Socialists (PS), Popular Democrats (which later changed its name to Social Democrats--PSD), and Center Social Democrats (CDS).

The communists and their allies in the Armed Forces Movement attempted to play down their relative lack of popular support (the Communist Party won only 12.5% of the vote) by tightening their hold on the provisional government and by seeking to diminish sharply the role of political parties.

Goncalves resigned under mounting civilian and military pressure, and a new provisional government (the sixth since April 1974) took office in September 1975, led by Adm. Jose Pinheiro de Azevedo.

The political tug-of-war continued until November 25, when left-wing military elements seized control of several strategic military bases, only to surrender peacefully the next day after a determined show of force by loyal units under the direction of Lt. Col. Antonio Ramalho Eanes.

Portugal's new constitution took effect on April 25, 1976, when elections for a parliamentary Assembly of the Republic also were held. In June, Eanes was elected president with 62% of the vote after gaining the support of the three major democratic parties. He chose Mario Soares, whose Socialist Party had won a plurality in the parliamentary elections, to serve as prime minister of Portugal's first democratic government since the 1920s.

Soares' minority socialist government fell in December 1977 and was followed by a succession of short-lived coalition and minority governments. In the July 1987 parliamentary elections, PSD leader Cavaco Silva led his party to a stunning victory, resulting in the first absolute majority for a single party. The PSD received a slight majority (just over 50%) of the popular vote but won 148 of the then-250 seats in parliament. Mario Soares, who had been elected president in February 1986, consequently invited Prime Minister Cavaco Silva to form a government, the first that appeared likely to complete its 4-year term since the 1974 revolution.

Since entering office, the Cavaco Silva government has implemented economic and social reforms intended to put Portugal on a more competitive footing with its European partners. The government and the Socialist Party also cooperated in the assembly to eliminate Marxist rhetoric from the constitution and to pave the way for full privatization of public sector enterprises. In the June 18, 1989, European Parliamentary elections, the ruling Social Democratic Party won 32.5% of the vote (vice 37% in 1987). The socialists increased their vote to 28.5%. Nearly half of the registered voters stayed away from the polls.

Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, May 1990.