Paulo Portas

Paulo Sacadura Cabral Portas (born 12 September 1962) is a Portuguese politician.

Born into a bourgeois family in Lisbon, with roots in Vila Viçosa on the paternal side and agricultural aristocracy of the side of his mother, Portas grew up in a political family. His father, Nuno Portas, was a progressive, left-wing Roman Catholic. His mother, Helena Sacadura Cabral, was a conservative. Ms. Sacadura Cabral seemed to have greater influence on young Paulo. When his parents separated, Paulo stayed with his mother, while his brother Miguel Portas (a member of Bloco de Esquerda) grew up with his father.

He was a militant member of the Democratic Popular Party (PPD, which is today's Social Democratic Party). He was a staunch follower of Francisco Sá Carneiro.

Portas studied law and journalism in university. He became known at an early age for the piece "Três Traições" ("Three Treasons"), which attacked three prominent politicians: António dos Santos Ramalho Eanes, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, and Mário Soares. The reason for this was their policy of decolonisation after the fall of fascist dictator António de Oliveira Salazar. In the mid-1970s, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor gained independence.

In 1998 Portas became the leader of the People's Party, which was in two coalition governments with the Social Democratic Party, from April 2002 to March 2005. In the 2002 legislative elections, the People's Party won 14 of 230 seats in the Portuguese Parliament, with 8.8 percent of the vote. Portas was appointed Minister of Defence in the first coalition government and Minister of Defence and Sea Affairs in the second.

In the 2005 Portuguese election the People's Party suffered a defeat, losing two seats in Parliament, and Portas announced he would step down from the party's leadership.