Archival footage from RTP, dated July 1968, shows the Legislative Council room in the Palace of Ponta Vermelha, Mozambique, where a power transfer ceremony took place. Here, a relative of Gouveia e Melo, tasked with government duties, officiated the swearing-in of Baltazar Rebelo de Sousa as the Governor-General of Mozambique.
The protagonists involved were the uncle of Henrique Gouveia e Melo and the father of the current President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. Gouveia e Melo now aims to succeed him at the Palácio de Belém.
Henrique Eduardo Passaláqua de Gouveia e Melo was born in Quelimane, Mozambique, on November 21, 1960, where he spent his adolescence before his family moved to Brazil following the events of April 25, 1974.
In a June 2021 interview with ‘Nascer do Sol’, he shared that his father, a lawyer and a “liberal with socialist leanings,” feared that the Portuguese regime might turn into a “communist dictatorship,” which prompted their move to Brazil. However, after November 25, 1975, the family returned “quickly to Portugal.”
In 1979, Gouveia e Melo, who described himself in the same interview as “a concerned student” who had “some success” with girls and had only ever drunk one beer in his life, joined the Naval School. This was after he reportedly wasn’t admitted to the Air Force due to being too tall for a cockpit.
At the age of 24, he joined the submarine squadron—where he spent 31 consecutive days underwater and later participated in the first mission of a conventional submarine under the Arctic. Over a career spanning more than 40 years with the Armed Forces, he held various military positions, attended several courses, and specialized in Communications and Electronic Warfare.
From 2017 to 2020, he served as the Naval Commander and led a detachment of soldiers to assist the population following the Pedrógão Grande fires.
In 2020, he assumed the position of planning and coordination officer in the General Staff of the Armed Forces. It was in this role that he was chosen the following year to coordinate the task force for the COVID-19 vaccination effort.
In these functions, he gained public attention, actively engaging in the planning of joint military actions on the ground and supporting health authorities.
On the same day he announced that the task force’s work had concluded in September 2021, it was reported that the government intended to propose to the President of the Republic the dismissal of the then-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Mendes Calado, who would be replaced before the end of his term by the then-Vice-Admiral.
After a controversial process, Gouveia e Melo became the head of the Navy on December 27, 2021, promoted to admiral, a position he held until 2024, when he decided to retire.
For months, he maintained a “taboo” about his candidacy for Belém, even after he humorously stated at an event in Lisbon in October 2021 that he hoped not to “succumb to the temptation” of politics: “If that happens, give me a rope to hang myself,” he joked at the time.
Regarding his political stance, Gouveia e Melo left some hints: in a December 2021 interview with Expresso, he positioned himself in the “pragmatic center.” More recently, in February, he said in a weekly opinion piece that he stood “between socialism and social democracy” and believed the President of the Republic should be “impartial and independent of party loyalties.”
Gouveia e Melo, who confessed to reading books on mathematics to relax in a ‘High Definition’ program interview on SIC, is expected to disclose more about his political thought starting Thursday.
