The former president of Portugal and a key figure of socialism in the return to democracy of that country, Jorge Sampaio, died at the age of 81 after being hospitalized for two weeks for respiratory problems. The Portuguese government highlighted its humanistic vision of politics and declared three days of national mourning.
The death of who was a emblem of Portuguese democracy It took place in the capital Lisbon and was confirmed by his family, who accompanied him in the last days of an internment in which the heart ailments with which the ex-president had lived for years worsened.
Who was Jorge Sampaio
Sampaio was born in Lisbon on September 18, 1939 and he was president of Portugal between 1996, when he won the elections in the first round, and 2001, when he was reelected for a second five-year term. In recent years, he reached the peak of a political career that began in the early years of Portuguese democracy, in the 1970s.
Then he was special envoy from United Nations for the Fight against Tuberculosis and high representative of the Alliance of Civilizations. In recent years he devoted himself to Global Platform for Syrian Students, which he founded in 2013 and is still presiding over.
“What would you like the people in your life to learn?” They asked him in one of his last interviews. “Resilience,” he replied. Never give up. Even if it is very low. You always hope that the next day you will be there again, that the night did not end with us. “
Repercussions of Sampaio’s death
The Portuguese government in charge of Prime Minister, the socialist António Costa, declared three days of mourning while finalizing the details of the funeral with Sampaio’s family. “He performed his duties with a civic sense of militancy and conviction” that his work was “one more way to exercise citizenship,” said the president.
He was also remembered for his historical rival, the conservative Marcelo Robelo de Sousa. “It showed that you can be born privileged and turn your life towards the underprivileged, always fighting with serenity,” he said and defined it as “a great lord of democracy and a great lord of the common homeland”.
Reactions to his death came from across the political spectrum, highlighting him as a key figure in major national agreements in Portugal. “He knew how to build bridges to the left that allowed new projects in the country and that made him mayor of Lisbon and later president of the Republic”said the coordinator of Bloco de Esquerda, Catarina Martins.
From the right, the leader of the conservative PSD, Rui Rio, also agreed to claim this political origin, but also the “excellent” deal with Sampaio, whose public life takes stock “exceptionally positive”.
A history of training and militancy
Sampaio spent part of his childhood abroad, between United States and England, an experience that marked him, and that was interrupted in adolescence, which took place in Lisbon, where he also graduated in Law in 1961.
It is in this decade when his political restlessness awakens, especially protesting while he was a student and one of the protagonists of the academic crisis of opposition to the dictatorship, a context in which he participated in the creation of the Revolutionary Action Movement, radical left.
Already graduated he became involved in defense and political prisoners, and participated in resistance movements who were betting on a democratic alternative with a socialist base.
He would launch to realize that vision after the Carnation Revolution, on April 25, 1974, which brought democracy to Portugal. Sampaio participated in the founding of the Movimiento de Izquierda Socialista (MES, for its acronym in Portuguese), but his presence was nevertheless short-lived due to disagreements with his course.
Then his tone became more moderate, and he emerged his profile as a man of meeting and agreements, which made it a link between the democratic institutions and the moderate wing of the Movement of the Armed Forces, the engine of the revolution.
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