The current mayor of Figueira da Foz spoke after leaving the wake of Pinto Balsemão, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 88. The wake is being held at the Church of the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon.
“I have never known anyone like Dr. Francisco Pinto Balsemão, who had the capacity to graciously accept and respect differences of opinion, because even the greatest democrats sometimes struggle,” he highlighted.
Santana Lopes remembered him as “a gentleman of democracy, a figure who knew how to be well with everyone.”
“It is a very rare moment of unanimity in statements from different political sectors about him,” he stated.
Asked whether the PSD founder was “a bit unloved” within his party, he admitted yes, by himself as well.
“Perhaps there was a time when he was Prime Minister, and I was also among the critics,” he said.
Francisco Pinto Balsemão, former leader of the PSD, ex-Prime Minister, and founder of Expresso and SIC, died on Tuesday at the age of 88.
The government has declared national mourning for today and Thursday, the days on which the funeral ceremonies will take place.
The wake for Francisco Pinto Balsemão is being held today from 6:30 PM in Lisbon, at the Jerónimos Monastery, with a mass scheduled at the same location at 1:00 PM on Thursday.
The wake and the mass are open to the public, while the funeral will be reserved for the family.
Balsemão was the founder, in 1973, of the weekly Expresso, during the dictatorship, of SIC, the first private television station in Portugal, in 1992, and of the media group Impresa.
In 1974, after the April 25th Revolution, he founded, along with Francisco Sá Carneiro and Magalhães Mota, the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD), later known as the Partido Social Democrata PSD. He led two governments after the death of Sá Carneiro, between 1981 and 1983, and remained a member of the Council of State, an advisory body to the President of the Republic, until his passing.
