Mario Soares, Portugal's former president and PM, dies at 92

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Mario Soares, a former prime minister and president of Portugal who helped steer his country toward democracy after a 1974 military coup and grew into a global statesman through his work with the Socialist International movement, has died. He was 92. In mid-December, just a week after his 92nd birthday, Soares was taken ill and transferred to the Red Cross hospital in the capital Lisbon where he was placed in intensive care. Soares had been admitted to a hospital in Lisbon on Dec. 13, and although his condition initially showed signs of some improvement, he later fell into a deep coma from which he never recovered. When an army-led revolution toppled Portugal's dictatorship on April 25, 1974, Soares took the first train to Lisbon, where he was mobbed by thousands of waiting admirers and marched through the Portuguese capital's streets. Soares was elected Portugal's first post-coup prime minister in 1976 and thwarted Portuguese Communist Party attempts to bring the NATO member under Soviet influence during the Cold War. Mario Soares, widely seen as the father of Portugal's modern-day democracy, was a towering figure in the country's political scene who spearheaded its entry into the European Union. In 1986, he became Portugal's first civilian president in 60 years and served two five-year terms. After flirting briefly with communism at university and then embracing Portugal’s democratic movement as a socialist, Soares was jailed 12 times and then exiled for his political activities during the dictatorship of Salazar. “We have lost today someone who has so many times been the face and the voice of our freedom, for which he fought all his life,” said the country’s current prime minister and fellow Socialist Antonio Costa. His biggest achievement as premier was negotiating Portugal's entry in 1986 into the European Economic Community, the precursor to the European Union.
Former President and Prime Minister of Portugal Mário Soares dies at the age of 92.