Lisbon: Jorge Sampao, a two-time former president of Portugal and one of the most prominent political figures of his generation, has died. He was 81 years old.
The current Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, announced Sampao’s death on Friday. He did not specify the cause of death, although Sampio had been in critical health for several years and had been in hospital for the past two weeks.
“Sampio prepared himself to be a fighter, and the banners of his fight were liberty and equality,” Rebelo de Sousa said in a televised statement.
He said that Sampao was like a “red-haired stormtrooper” in the 1960s, when as a young lawyer he stood up for the then dictatorship of Portugal.
But in his six-decade political career in Portugal as a centre-left socialist and later as a diplomat for United Nations, Sampaio earned praise for his low-key, straightforward manner. He once said that he always wanted to be an orchestra conductor.
At home, Sampao is perhaps best remembered for controversially toppling the centre-right government in 2004, when he was head of state.
that was when social democratic party Leader José Manuel Barroso stepped down as prime minister to become president of the European Commission. He was replaced by Pedro Santana Lopes, the vice president of his party.
After months of government fighting, public gaffes and interjections, Sampio called for early elections to end “a serious crisis of credibility and instability”.
Subsequent election gave a massive victory to the centre-left socialist Party, which was once led by Sampio.
Sampio began his political career in the late 1950s while studying law at the University of Lisbon, growing through a range of underground student movements that opposed the then dictatorship of Antonio Salazar.
After graduation, he defended prisoners by special courts dealing exclusively with political matters.
He became associated with extreme leftist movements after the 1974 Carnation Revolution, overthrowing the dictatorship and introducing democracy.
He assumed his first government position in 1975 as Secretary of State for Foreign Cooperation. He was fluent in English, living for a year in the United States when he was eight years old when his father, a renowned Portuguese physician, went to study. at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Sampao, whose mother was an English teacher, also spent time in England as a youth.
He switched allegiance to the mainstream Socialist Party in 1978 and returned to parliament five times as a Socialist MP from the following year.
Sampao successfully ran for mayor of the capital Lisbon in 1979, and 10 years later became leader of the Socialist Party.
His two-term tenure as mayor of the Portuguese capital provided a platform for his election as president in 1996 and his re-election in 2006, winning both elections by comfortable margins.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Sampao as his special envoy on tuberculosis in 2006. The following year, Annan’s successor, Ban Ki-moon, succeeded him. United Nations High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations.
Sampao is survived by his wife, a daughter and a son.
The current Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, announced Sampao’s death on Friday. He did not specify the cause of death, although Sampio had been in critical health for several years and had been in hospital for the past two weeks.
“Sampio prepared himself to be a fighter, and the banners of his fight were liberty and equality,” Rebelo de Sousa said in a televised statement.
He said that Sampao was like a “red-haired stormtrooper” in the 1960s, when as a young lawyer he stood up for the then dictatorship of Portugal.
But in his six-decade political career in Portugal as a centre-left socialist and later as a diplomat for United Nations, Sampaio earned praise for his low-key, straightforward manner. He once said that he always wanted to be an orchestra conductor.
At home, Sampao is perhaps best remembered for controversially toppling the centre-right government in 2004, when he was head of state.
that was when social democratic party Leader José Manuel Barroso stepped down as prime minister to become president of the European Commission. He was replaced by Pedro Santana Lopes, the vice president of his party.
After months of government fighting, public gaffes and interjections, Sampio called for early elections to end “a serious crisis of credibility and instability”.
Subsequent election gave a massive victory to the centre-left socialist Party, which was once led by Sampio.
Sampio began his political career in the late 1950s while studying law at the University of Lisbon, growing through a range of underground student movements that opposed the then dictatorship of Antonio Salazar.
After graduation, he defended prisoners by special courts dealing exclusively with political matters.
He became associated with extreme leftist movements after the 1974 Carnation Revolution, overthrowing the dictatorship and introducing democracy.
He assumed his first government position in 1975 as Secretary of State for Foreign Cooperation. He was fluent in English, living for a year in the United States when he was eight years old when his father, a renowned Portuguese physician, went to study. at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Sampao, whose mother was an English teacher, also spent time in England as a youth.
He switched allegiance to the mainstream Socialist Party in 1978 and returned to parliament five times as a Socialist MP from the following year.
Sampao successfully ran for mayor of the capital Lisbon in 1979, and 10 years later became leader of the Socialist Party.
His two-term tenure as mayor of the Portuguese capital provided a platform for his election as president in 1996 and his re-election in 2006, winning both elections by comfortable margins.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Sampao as his special envoy on tuberculosis in 2006. The following year, Annan’s successor, Ban Ki-moon, succeeded him. United Nations High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations.
Sampao is survived by his wife, a daughter and a son.
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