Anibal Antonio Cavaco Silva was on March 9, 2006 sworn in as Portugal’s sixth president since the democratic Carnation Revolution of 1974 and 21st president since the establishment of the Portuguese Republic in 1910.

        Cavaco Silva was born in the village of Boliqueima in the southern region of the Algarve on July 15, 1939. Backed by the centre-right opposition Socialdemocratic Party (PSD), the economist narrowly defeated five leftist candidates in the first round of direct election on January 22, 2006, garnering 50.6 per cent of the vote.

        As head of state of the Portuguese Republic, Cavaco Silva succeeded Jorge Sampaio, who had served out his second and constitutional final five-year term. A decade ago, Cavaco Silva had lost his first presidential bid to Sampaio.

        Cavaco Silva was prime minister of Portugal between November 1985 and October 1995. His decade-long tenure was the longest of any democratically elected prime minister in Portuguese history, and he was the first Portuguese head of government to have won an absolute parliamentary majority, an achievement that he reached twice.

        After obtaining an economics degree in Portugal, Cavaco Silva was awarded a doctorate of the University of York in the UK in 1974. Following his return to Portugal, he worked for a number of universities and for the Portuguese central bank (Banco de Portugal). He retired as an advisor to the board of the bank in 2004, when he became a chair professor at the School of Economics and Management of the Catholic University in Lisbon.

        Cavaco Silva entered politics in 1980, when he was appointed finance minister by late prime minister Francisco Sa Carneiro. He assumed the leadership of the PSD in 1985, after which he launched his 10-year premiership that was characterized by a process of economic liberalization. He decided not to contest the 1994 general election, which the PSD ended up losing.

        Cavaco Silva was out of political office between October 28, 1995 and March 9, 2006. He abandoned politics after losing the 1996 presidential election to Sampaio, who was backed by the Socialist Party (PS). He returned to his profession as an economist with Banco de Portugal and as an economics professor, apart from publishing his memoirs and a raft of media comments on public affairs.

        In October 2005, Cavaco Silva formally announced his intention to make a second bid for president. His victory in the January 2006 election made him the first centre-right president of Portugal since the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He is also the second former Portuguese prime minister to be elected president, following Mario Soares, whom he defeated in the January 2006 poll.

        Cavaco Silva signed the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau in 1987.

        José Sócrates – Prime Minister

        The current Portuguese Prime Minister, civil engineer José Sócrates, was born in September 1957, in Vilar de Maçada, district of Vila Real, in the North of Portugal.

        After finishing his degree and a post-graduate course in Sanitary Engineering, José Socrates’ life focused on party politics.

        He became a member of the Socialist Party in 1981, and from that moment on his official résumé mentions only political positions (within the party) and public roles. Thus, he was a member of parliament between 1987 and 1995, member of the XIII and XIV constitutional governments and member of parliament again from 2002.

        In September 2004 he was elected secretary-general of the Socialist Party and in February 2005 he obtained an absolute majority in a general election and became Prime Minister of the XVII constitutional government

        Fernando Teixeira dos Santos –Finance Minister

        Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, Portugal’s current Minister of State and Finance has a doctorate in Economics from the University of South Carolina and his professional life covers working as a university professor, in stock market regulation and time spent as a member of a previous Government.

        Having been Secretary of State for the Treasury and Finance in the XIII Constitutional Government headed by António Guterres and in which
José Sócrates was Deputy Prime Minister, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos replaced Luís Campos e Cunha, university professor and Minister of Finance from March to July 2005.

        Since March 2000 and until Prime Minister José Sócrates invited him to be part of the Government, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos was President of the Portuguese Stock Market Regulator, CMVM, while also teaching at the Economics Faculty of the University of Porto.