“What we must highlight more are the differences rather than the similarities, but it is a personality that I naturally respect and who was very significant regarding national politics,” said the candidate supported by the Portuguese Communist Party to journalists.
Before visiting the Aboim Ascensão Refuge in Faro, António Filipe recalled that Pinto Balsemão held the position of head of government for several years, was the founder, and member number one of “a party that holds the relevance that the PSD has in Portuguese democracy.”
“He is a personality I respect, naturally noting the differences I had and continue to maintain concerning his political stance,” said the candidate for the presidency of the Republic.
António Filipe emphasized that “it is a moment to express the respect I have always had for him [Pinto Balsemão] and to offer condolences to his close ones, both politically and in terms of family and friends,” he said.
António Filipe also remembered him as “a personality with a very remarkable path” whom he contacted when Pinto Balsemão was president of Impresa, “particularly during the drafting of diplomas related to social communication, specifically the Television Law.”
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.
Balsemão founded the weekly Expresso in 1973 during the dictatorship, SIC, the first private television in Portugal, in 1992, and the media group Impresa.
In 1974, after April 25, he founded, along with Francisco Sá Carneiro and Magalhães Mota, the Democratic Popular Party (PPD), later the Social Democratic Party PSD. He led two governments after the death of Sá Carneiro, between 1981 and 1983, and was, until his death, a member of the Council of State, an advisory body to the President of the Republic.
