Paulo Rangel spoke to journalists during the PSD National Council on Tuesday night, where he received news of the death of PSD founder and member number one, Francisco Pinto Balsemão, beginning by extending condolences to his family.
“We are undoubtedly talking about one of the great figures in Portuguese politics and society over the past 60 years,” he emphasized, recalling Balsemão’s role in opposing Salazar’s regime as a journalist and deputy of the Liberal Wing, alongside Francisco Sá Carneiro, Magalhães Mota, and Miller Guerra, and later as prime minister.
The deputy prime minister also highlighted Balsemão’s “decisive role” in constitutional revision and the press law.
“He was a free man. I think he was indeed someone who changed Portugal, certainly as a politician, but perhaps the legacy that will remain strongest, and I think it’s fair to say, will be press freedom,” he noted.
Rangel stressed that Francisco Pinto Balsemão “never lifted a single finger nor uttered a single word to alter a journalist’s version or to influence the editing of any news.”
“I believe that this legacy of press freedom, of freedom of social communication, of the modernization of social communication, of openness to innovation, will perhaps be his greatest legacy,” he said.
Rangel also highlighted Francisco Pinto Balsemão’s straightforwardness, who “had the knack of telling everyone what he thought, which did not mean that he often got angry with people.”
“But that straightforwardness, which is not a very Portuguese characteristic, was one of his traits. Another was his love for innovation,” he said, recalling his recent projects linked to artificial intelligence.
“If I had to choose one word, it would be freedom. Being with Francisco Pinto Balsemão was breathing freedom every minute and every moment when he did not refrain from lighting his cigarette. In this too he was a free and independent man,” he stressed.
The former Prime Minister Francisco Pinto Balsemão, founder and member number one of the PSD, of which he was also president, died today aged 88.
Even during the dictatorship, in 1973, he created the weekly newspaper Expresso, and later, in democracy, SIC, the first private television in Portugal, in 1992.
After the death of Francisco Sá Carneiro, he presided over the PSD and headed the VII and VIII constitutional governments, of the Democratic Alliance, between 1981 and 1983.
