Portuguese politician (1930?2004)
In this
Portuguese name
, the first or maternal
family name
is
Ruivo da Silva
and the second or paternal family name is
Matos Pintasilgo
.
Maria de Lourdes Ruivo da Silva de Matos Pintasilgo
GCC
GCIH
GCL
(
Portuguese pronunciation:
[m???i?
ð?
?lu?ð??
p?t??sil?u]
; 18 January 1930 ? 10 July 2004) was a Portuguese chemical engineer and politician. She was the first and to date only woman to serve as
Prime Minister
of
Portugal
, and the second woman to serve as
prime minister
in
Western Europe
, after
Margaret Thatcher
.
Early life
[
edit
]
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo was born to a middle-class family in 1930.
[1]
Her father, Jaime de Matos Pintasilgo (born
Covilha
, Conceicao, 9 December 1896 ? died
Lisbon
, Socorro, 10 October 1959) was in the
wool
business, and her mother was Amelia do Carmo Ruivo da Silva, a native of
Vendas Novas
. Her parents married in
Abrantes
on 14 March 1929.
[2]
Her father, Jaime, abandoned the family and at school she tried hard to hide that, thus causing her to avoid usual relationships.
[3]
At the age of seven, she was sent to the Liceu Filipa de Lencastre, a secondary school, in Lisbon. She distinguished herself in the
Mocidade Portuguesa
, a militaristic youth movement founded by Dictator Salazar. Later she joined Accao Catolica (Catholic Action). During her years at the
Instituto Superior Tecnico
from where she earned a degree in industrial
chemical engineering
, she joined and eventually led the Catholic's women's student movement.
[2]
Early career
[
edit
]
After graduating from
University of Lisbon
's
Instituto Superior Tecnico
in 1953, at the age of 23, with an engineering degree in industrial chemistry she went into a graduate scholarship program with the national Nuclear Energy Board.
[4]
After completing the program, she began working for a large Portuguese conglomerate with interests in cement plants,
Companhia Uniao Fabril
, the "CUF".
[4]
By 1954, she held the position of chief engineer of the studies and projects division.
[4]
From that position she quickly moved to the position of project director, where she was in charge of the firm's documentation center and responsible for the company's technical journals.
[4]
She held this position for seven years, until she left the company in 1960.
[4]
Pintasilgo had strong ties to the
Roman Catholic Church
. From 1952 to 1956, at Lisbon's
Catholic University of Portugal
, she was president of the women's group. In 1956 she became the international president of a movement of Catholic students, Pax Romana. In 1961, Pintasilgo joined the Grail (Graal), an international Catholic laywomen's movement. Two years after joining the Grail she led an international group working to improve the movement as well as establishing it in Portugal.
[4]
By 1965 she had become the Grail's international vice-president. She was also appointed by the Vatican and served as woman's liaison between the Roman Catholic Church and the
World Council of Churches
. After leaving
Companhia Uniao Fabril
, she held a job in government until 1969 which was to run Portugal's program for development and social change. In 1970, she presided over government working groups involving women's affairs, as well as being a member of the Portuguese delegation to the United Nations, 1971?72. In 1974 she was appointed secretary of state for social welfare in the first provisional government following the revolution. She moved her way up to Minister of Social Affairs by early 1975. In 1975, Pintasilgo became Portugal's first Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.
[4]
Tenure as Prime Minister and later career
[
edit
]
In 1979 she was called on by General
Antonio Ramalho Eanes
, the
president of Portugal
, to become
prime minister
.
[2]
Pintasilgo was sworn in as the Prime Minister of the Portuguese caretaker government on 1 August 1979 with the term of three months in office.
[5]
During her time in office she pushed to modernize the out-dated social welfare system. She left her mark by making social security universal and improving health care, education, and labor legislation in Portugal.
[2]
She contributed the piece "Daring to be different" to the 1984 anthology
Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology
, edited by
Robin Morgan
.
[6]
Pintasilgo was the first woman to run for president in 1986. She ran as an independent and received 7% of the votes. The following year she was elected to the European Parliament as a member of the Socialist Party which she held until 1989.
[1]
From 1992 and for almost a decade, she chaired the Independent Commission for Population and Quality of Life - ICPQL. Hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, in Paris, the international Commission was established by a coalition of governments and global Foundations in order to make recommendations to be presented to the UN system and donors community. In her statement at the Cairo UN
International Conference on Population and Development
on Sept, 7, 1994, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo explained, "The ultimate goal of Population and Development is to accord an improved quality of life to the people of the world. Not only to count people but to ensure that people count in Development
[7]
". The commission's report was published in 1996 under the title: "Caring for the Future, Making the Next Decades Provide a Life Worth Living
[8]
", edited by Oxford University Press.
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo died of
cardiac arrest
at her home in
Lisbon
on 10 July 2004, aged 74.
[9]
She was buried in
Prazeres Cemetery
, in
Lisbon
.
Electoral results
[
edit
]
1986 Portuguese presidential election
[
edit
]
Summary of the 26 January and 16 February 1986
Portuguese
presidential
election results
Candidates
|
Supporting parties
|
First round
|
Second round
|
Votes
|
%
|
Votes
|
%
|
|
Mario Soares
|
Socialist Party
|
1,443,683
|
25.43
|
3,010,756
|
51.18
|
|
Diogo Freitas do Amaral
|
Democratic and Social Centre
,
Social Democratic Party
|
2,629,597
|
46.31
|
2,872,064
|
48.82
|
|
Francisco Salgado Zenha
|
Portuguese Communist Party
,
Democratic Renovator Party
|
1,185,867
|
20.88
|
|
|
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo
|
Independent
|
418,961
|
7.38
|
|
Angelo Veloso
[A]
|
Portuguese Communist Party
|
left the race
|
Total valid
|
5,677,525
|
100.00
|
5,882,820
|
100.00
|
Blank ballots
|
46,334
|
0.81
|
33,844
|
0.57
|
Invalid ballots
|
18,292
|
0.32
|
20,436
|
0.34
|
Total
(turnout 75.38% and 77.99%)
|
5,742,151
|
|
5,937,100
|
|
A
He left the race in favor of Salgado Zenha.
|
Source:
Comissao Nacional de Eleicoes
|
Legacy
[
edit
]
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo was a student at
Instituto Superior Tecnico
(IST), one of the most prestigious Engineering faculties in Portugal. Since 2016, IST promotes the Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo Award aiming to recognize and reward annually two women that graduated at IST, as a way to promote the gender balance policy at IST as well as recognize the crucial role that women have in all fields of Engineering.
[10]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
"Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo", p. 32,
The Times (London)
, 15 July 2004
- ^
a
b
c
d
O'Shaughnessy, Hugh, "Obituary: Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo; Europe's Second Female Prime Minister", p. 34.
The Independent (London)
, 14 July 2004
- ^
Cook, Stephen and Stuart Wavell: "Thursday People: Lisbon's laby in waiting/ Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, Portuguese presidential candidate",
The Guardian (London)
, 2 January 1986
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
Associated Press
,
International News
, Lisbon, Portugal, 19 July 1979
- ^
"Portuguese New Government Sworn In",
Xinhua General News Service
, 3 August 1979
- ^
"Table of Contents: Sisterhood is global"
. Catalog.vsc.edu. Archived from
the original
on 8 December 2015
. Retrieved
15 October
2015
.
- ^
Maria, de Lourdes Pintasilgo.
"Statement of Independent Commission for Population & Quality of Life"
.
unfpa.org
.
- ^
The Independent Commission for Population and Quality of Life (1996).
Caring for the future: making the next decades provide a life worth living : report of the Independent Commission on Population and Quality of Life
. Oxford University Press. p. 359.
ISBN
978-0-19-286186-3
.
OCLC
32893276
.
- ^
"Portugal mourns much-loved female leader",
EuroNews
, 10 July 2004
- ^
"Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo Award"
.
Tecnico Lisboa
. Retrieved
12 September
2023
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Skard, Torild
(2014) "Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo" in
Women of Power - Half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide
, Brtistol: Policy Press,
ISBN
978-1-44731-578-0
.
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