‘Citizen above all suspicion’

Date: 11/01/1996

FORMER Portuguese Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco Silva is warning citizens that if they vote for Jorge Sampaio, his rival in this weekend's presidential election, they risk putting a radical in the president's office and destabilising the government.

His remarks have sparked outrage among Sampaio's supporters.

“How can Cavaco pretend to justify suggesting that this man is a danger to democracy?” asks Planning Minister and former MEP João Cravinho. “Pulling democratic credentials against somebody like Sampaio is ridiculous.”

Their anger stems from the fact that Sampaio, a 56-year-old native of the Portuguese capital Lisbon, has been a champion of the cause of democracy since before his political career began.

As leader of the law faculty's student union at Lisbon University, Sampaio helped mount the most important challenge to the right-wing dictatorship - the University's 1962 general strike, still referred to with awe as the '62 Movement'. He and other student leaders were arrested for their troubles, but the regime was profoundly shaken.

The young lawyer then turned his skills to defending political prisoners, who were arrested and detained in large numbers by the dictatorship. Despite his youth, Sampaio soon made himself famous defending Communist party leaders - then regarded as the arch-enemies of the state.

“Then, only militant people were lawyers,” said Cravinho, a friend of Sampaio's from university who led the engineering students' union. “It wasn't a legal or professional matter, it was a militant matter.”

During rigged elections in 1969, Sampaio ran for a seat in the legislature, but lost.

Five years later, he founded the Movement of the Socialist Left, or Movimento de Esquerda Socialista (MES), the only political movement that had a representation in the clandestine labour movement. When a military coup brought down the dictatorship and democracy arrived in Portugal in 1974, the MES came out of the shadows .

Sampaio was a relative late-comer to the Partido Socialista (PS), joining the party in 1978 - five years after it was founded by Portugal's current President Mário Soares.

By 1989, Sampaio was the party's secretary-general, but the PS suffered a split soon after when Sampaio and his followers called for a return to old Socialist ideals. Sampaio lost out in a party leadership battle to António Guterres in 1991 after the party was defeated in a general election by Cavaco Silva's centre-right Partido Social Democrata (PSD).

Guterres went from strength to strength, winning a resounding victory in last October's general election and taking over the premiership from Cavaco Silva.

Followers of both Guterres and Sampaio say the wounds they inflicted on each other during their battle to shape the party's future have since healed, and Guterres has been campaigning on his former rival's behalf in the run-up to polling this Sunday (14 January).

Both Sampaio and Cavaco Silva have made Europe a campaign issue. Cavaco Silva, who was in power for virtually all of Portugal's decade as an EU member, has (and continues to use) the advantage of being associated with Portugal's entry into the Union and the enormous influx of EU money into the country since it joined the Union in 1986. Most Portuguese are aware of the enormous financial benefits that Union membership has brought their country. This has acted as a brake on the downward slide in the EU's popularity in Portugal in recent years, but has not succeeded in halting it altogether - as shown by the successes notched up by a small but noisy Eurosceptic party, the Partido Popular (PP), which doubled the number of seats it holds in the national parliament last autumn.

Guterres has made no secret of the difficulties Portuguese will face as they tighten their belts in an attempt to meet the Maastricht Treaty convergence criteria in time to join the first group of countries moving towards a single currency in 1999, but insists Portugal must be there.

To push through what will surely be difficult economic measures, Guterres wants Sampaio in the presidency.

The PS's current popularity is obviously a key factor behind the strong lead Sampaio has enjoyed in opinion polls in the run up to this weekend's election. But he is also popular in his own right after making a political comeback as mayor of Lisbon from 1989 to 1995. He stepped down from the mayor's post last year to enter the presidential race.

Except for childhood periods in the UK and America, Lisbon has always been Sampaio's home. His mother's family - Sephardic Jews from Morocco - arrived in Lisbon in the 19th century and became famous as scientists, painters and public figures. Sampaio's father, a doctor from northern Portugal, made a mark on his early years, raising him as a practising Catholic.

Sampaio's move to the Lisbon mayorship was not an accident, but could almost be termed as such.

In 1989, faced with what seemed then like certain defeat, the PS could not find a candidate to run as mayor. Since nobody else would stand, Sampaio offered himself.

“Everyone told him it was a bet he shouldn't take,” said Cravinho. “But he took it and he won.”

In two terms as mayor, Sampaio has been credited with rejuvenating Lisbon's decaying quarters, reviving cultural activities, ringing the city with autoroutes, and other public works. Quickly recognised by passers-by when he walks the city streets, the ginger-haired, congenial mayor is popular.

“He is a simple man and likes to lead a normal life,” said a Lisbon resident. “He and his wife are very much involved in the city's day-to-day life.”

This easy-going manner has led many Portuguese to describe Sampaio as “the citizen above all suspicion”.

The presidential candidate, who is married to TAP-AIR Portugal executive Maria Ritta and has an 18-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son, maintains he prefers a sandwich at home to official dinners.

He also takes time out to pursue his old loves: music, walking, reading and football.

“We used to play friendly football every Sunday, and the old boys still meet at a friend's house to play,” said Cravinho. “I've stopped playing, but Sampaio and others still do. I don't know what shape they are in the next day!”

Sampaio's colleagues, even his campaign workers, describe him as a gentleman, referring to his gracious behaviour after losing elections or the party leadership.

Political analysts say presidencies run by Sampaio and Cavaco Silva would not differ much in substance. But Sampaio supporters say he, like fellow Socialist Guterres, would concentrate more on social conditions than his rival.

“They say Cavaco Silva has given motorways to Portugal, but they will work on the social dimension,” commented one.

Both known for their solid pro-European stances, Sampaio and Guterres have also pledged to push for social causes with their EU partners. “They want to put the social dimension in the front line of European construction,” said a Portuguese journalist.

In the final days before polling, Cavaco Silva has been stepping up the pressure on Sampaio in a last ditch bid to turn the tide in his favour.

But, according to Cravinho, the challenge can only encourage the Socialist candidate, who thrives on adversity.

“Sampaio is at his best when he's up against the wall,” he said.