President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa paid tribute to the president of the Impresa group, describing him as a visionary, fighter, and optimist, who “always believed in tomorrow” with “unwavering hope and faith”.
“For more than six decades, he contributed to a closed Portugal as well as a Portugal he helped open to freedom and democracy,” he stated.
The head of state noted that this sometimes happened “so naturally that his steps seemed not to be changing Portugal, but they were”.
“They changed and altered the lives of others, the life of all of us. He was never an island, always sought to fulfill himself through and with others. And this, which was much, which was everything, Portugal will never forget,” concluded the President of the Republic.
Former Prime Minister Francisco Pinto Balsemão, founder and member number one of the PSD, which he also presided over, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 88.
Today, at the funeral Mass preceding Balsemão’s burial, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke after a musical moment where Camané sang the fado “Abandono”.
The President of the Republic described Balsemão as a visionary, who was dedicated “to doing things for and with others” and knew how to “anticipate times and ways, break barriers, blaze trails, build futures with inventiveness and boldness”, a fighter who acted “with courage and a taste for risk”, and an optimist “always believing in tomorrow”.
Francisco Pinto Balsemão chaired the media group Impresa, which includes Expresso, founded even during the dictatorship in 1973, and SIC, Portugal’s first private television, created in 1992.
In 1974, after the April 25th Revolution, he founded the Democratic People’s Party (PPD) with Francisco Sá Carneiro and Magalhães Mota, later becoming the Social Democratic Party (PSD).
After the death of Francisco Sá Carneiro, Balsemão assumed the presidency of the PSD from 1980 to 1983 and led the VII and VIII constitutional governments of the AD, between 1981 and 1983.
He was a member of the Council of State, a political advisory body to the President of the Republic.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa worked at Expresso with Balsemão, where he also began his political-party career in the PPD, now PSD, and served government roles with him.
In the VIII Government, the second led by Francisco Balsemão, the current head of state first served as Secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and then as Minister of Parliamentary Affairs.
[News updated at 14:44]
