At the Portugal pavilion in Parque das Nações, starting at 5 PM, an exhibition titled “Mário Soares: Um Homem Inteiro” will be held alongside a session on the former President’s life, “Mário Soares – As palavras e as imagens“.
The initiatives, part of the official commemorations of the birth centenary of the PS founder and first leader, will feature the presentation of the exhibition’s catalog book, published by Tinta-da-China.
This album, with photographs taken by Luís Vasconcelos over 30 years, covers the revolutionary period, the consolidation of democracy, and Soares’s tenure as President.
The catalog includes texts by European Council President António Costa, centenary commission coordinator José Manuel dos Santos, and journalist Sérgio Gomes.
António Costa, in his text, states that remembering Mário Soares through Luís Vasconcelos’s photography “is surely one of the best ways” to reconnect with the former Prime Minister and Head of State.
“The lens of Luís Vasconcelos allows us to reconnect, in this centenary of Mário Soares, with this unique and tireless fighter for three ideas as simple as they are powerful: Freedom, Democracy, Social Justice. He fought for them in dictatorship and in democracy, and they truthfully describe his life,” writes the former Prime Minister.
The session will also feature the fourth episode of the yet-to-be-released documentary “A duas voltas — Mário Soares e as presidenciais de 1986” by Ivan Nunes and Paulo Pena, followed by a debate with Daniel Oliveira, Francisco Mendes da Silva, Pedro Adão e Silva, and Teresa Violante. The documentary will later be broadcast by RTP.
The evocative session of Mário Soares will also include speeches by former minister and current PSD vice-president Leonor Beleza and former Lisbon mayor João Soares, son of the PS founder and leader.
José Manuel dos Santos, writer and former direct collaborator with the former President, notes that the centenary of Mário Soares’s birth is being celebrated “in a contemporary manner, for this great Portuguese, European, and world citizen.”
“By updating the message his life represents, we show its inspiring importance in the threatening times we are living. Celebrating Soares means resisting and saying no to the anti-democratic and populist offensive,” he states.
The centenary commission’s coordinator adds that “celebrating Soares is reaffirming the political and moral values of freedom, democracy, and solidarity.”
