“Pinto Balsemão was an indelible figure of 20th and 21st-century Portugal,” stated Nuno Melo, the current Minister of Defense, emphasizing the role of the former prime minister in politics and the free press.
Former Prime Minister Francisco Pinto Balsemão, founder and member number one of the PSD, passed away today at the age of 88.
The leader of the CDS-PP also noted that Pinto Balsemão lived a long and full life in various areas, emphasizing that he was a reference in Portugal and abroad.
Nuno Melo extended condolences to the family of the former prime minister and the Social Democratic Party, highlighting that Pinto Balsemão was the founder of the PSD.
The news of the death at 88 came from the president of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, during the party’s National Council, where applause was heard in the room.
Balsemão founded the weekly Expresso in 1973, during the dictatorship, and SIC, Portugal’s first private television channel, in 1992.
He was a co-founder, alongside Francisco Sá Carneiro, of the Democratic Popular Party (PPD), which later became the Social Democratic Party (PSD), in 1974. Until today, he held membership number one and was a member of the Council of State, a consultative body for President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
His last political intervention, already ill, took place exactly 35 days ago, on September 16, through a written message supporting presidential candidate Luís Marques Mendes, a former president of the PSD.
