Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Luís Montenegro arrived at around 7:00 PM in the same car at the entrance of the Church of Santa Maria de Belém. They were attending the memorial service for the former Prime Minister and founder of the PSD and left after nearly an hour, without speaking to the press.
Earlier, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, President of the Assembly of the Republic, was present at the location for about ten minutes.
Later, former President of the Republic António Ramalho Eanes arrived at Jerónimos, accompanied by his wife, Manuela Eanes.
Also in attendance were former Prime Ministers Pedro Santana Lopes and Pedro Passos Coelho, the latter choosing to wait in the general public queue, foregoing protocol privileges.
Members of the current PSD/CDS-PP government present included the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel, the Minister of Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, the Minister of Justice, Rita Alarcão Júdice, the Minister of Environment and Energy, Graça Carvalho, the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Margarida Balseiro Lopes, and the Minister for State Reform, Gonçalo Matias.
Others attending the memorial for Balsemão included former presidential candidate Ana Gomes and presidential candidate António José Seguro, a former PS Secretary-General, as well as former ministers João de Deus Pinheiro, Fernando Faria de Oliveira, and Luís Pedro Mota Soares, the parliamentary leader of the CDS-PP, Paulo Núncio, and several PSD deputies, including the Vice-President of the Assembly of the Republic, Teresa Morais.
The public viewing for the founder of SIC and Expresso started around 6:40 PM and was scheduled to end by 10:00 PM. A mass is set for 1:00 PM Thursday at Jerónimos, preceding the family-only funeral.
The arrival of numerous high-profile individuals, through a restricted area with access barriers to the church, delayed public entry. By 8:00 PM, Passos Coelho had been waiting for over an hour in the public line among hundreds of others.
Francisco Pinto Balsemão, former Prime Minister and number one member of the PSD, which he also led, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 88.
He presided over the media group Impresa, which includes Expresso, founded during the dictatorship in 1973, and SIC, Portugal’s first private television channel, created in 1992.
In 1974, after the 25th of April Revolution, he co-founded the Democratic Popular Party (PPD) with Francisco Sá Carneiro and Magalhães Mota, later renamed the Social Democratic Party (PSD).
Following Francisco Sá Carneiro’s death, Balsemão assumed the presidency of the PSD from 1980 to 1983 and led the VII and VIII constitutional governments of the Democratic Alliance (AD) from 1981 to 1983.
He was a member of the Council of State, a political advisory body to the President of the Republic.
