António Almeida Santos dies

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António Almeida Santos dies

8:35 CAT | 20 Jan 2016

euronews / A file photo of António Almeida Santos.

Prominent Portuguese socialist António de Almeida Santos died late on Monday at his home in Oeiras, Portugal, aged 89, the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS) has confirmed.

Almeida Santos, who was honorary president of PS and former Speaker of the Portuguese parliament, lived in Mozambique for 21 years (1953-1974), becoming well known among lawyer’s while maintaining an intense civic and political presence. In the then city of Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, the Mozambican capital, Almeida Santos joined the Democratas de Moçambique group and was the representative of the presidential candidacy of General Humberto Delgado. He was twice a National Assembly opposition candidate under the Salazar regime, but in both cases his candidacy was annulled by the colonial administration.

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said that it was with huge shock that he received news of the death of Almeida Santos.

António Costa described it as “the loss of a great friend, a comrade. He was an extraordinary man, a great legislator, who built the rule of law following 25 April 1974. A great freedom fighter and one of the makers of decolonization, a man who throughout his public life, as a member of parliament or a member of government, as president of Parliament (Speaker) or president of the PS, always gave his best, and still had so much to give to democracy and to the ideas in which he believed”.

António Almeida Santos was 89. He had kept a close relationship with Mozambique throughout the post-independence years, visiting the country often.

Source: Jornal Notícias / Rádio Moçambique