Opposition in Portugal
1969; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/j.1477-7053.1969.tb00176.x
ISSN1477-7053
Autores Tópico(s)French Historical and Cultural Studies
ResumoCONTRARY TO EXPECTATIONS, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SALAZAR FROM the political scene has not, in the short-run at least, led to a serious succession crisis in Portugal. A few weeks of hard but covert bargaining within the ruling circles culminated in the appointment by the President, Admiral Tomás of Dr Marcello Caetano as Prime Minister. Admiral Tomás was himself appointed by Salazar and chosen partly for his docility and innocuousness to replace the rebellious Craveiro Lopes in 1958; he has no power base of his own. Although in a fluid situation such as this his role has allowed him a greater latitude of choice than in normal circumstances, his decision probably reflected the balance of forces within the ruling circles. Caetano's background is typical of a whole generation of ‘counter-revolutionary’ monarchists, whose political formation matured within the matrix of the Portuguese Maurrassist movement, the integralismo Insitano . Somehow his monarchist allegiance, if not his authoritarian-corporatist convictions, waned as his career within the Estado Novo waxed. He was one of the young (in their twenties and thirties) integralista experts whose services were vital in Salazar's transformation of a mindless military dictatorship into a ‘respectable’ authoritarian regime.
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