PORTUGAL: OFFICIAL CAMPAIGNING BEGINS FOR PORTUGAL'S FIRST MULTI-PARTY ELECTIONS IN 48 YEARS

Record ID: 347260

  • Title: PORTUGAL: OFFICIAL CAMPAIGNING BEGINS FOR PORTUGAL'S FIRST MULTI-PARTY ELECTIONS IN 48 YEARS
  • Date: 3rd April 1975
  • Summary: 1. GV PAN ALONG Lisbon street with political posters on walls and windows. 0.13 2. GV ZOOM INTO SCUs Political posters. (4 shots) 0.24 3. GV EXT. Buses outside station PAN TO posters and writing on station wall. 0.30 4. GV SV PAN & GV Tram filled with MDP (Portuguese Dem. Movement) campaigners. (3 shots) 0.45 5. GV PAN & SVS Communist ral
  • Embargoed: 18th April 1975 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LIBSON, PORTUGAL
  • Country: Portugal
  • Reuters ID: LVAMTVFVNGL34UN6DMDSTAU3TKI
  • Story Text: Official campaigning for Portugal's first multi-party, secret-ballot elections in 48 years began on Wednesday (2 April).

    Within minutes, teams of party militants were busy adding poster and slogans to the already heavily plastered walls of buildings throughout the capital, Lisbon, and the rest of the country. The Communist Party, with its hammers and sickles, while the Socialist clenched fist ran a poor second.

    Altogether, 12 parties -- ranging across the political spectrum from the ultra, Marxist left to the moderate right -- are competing for the votes to be case on April 25, but the communists and the Socialists are seen as the strongest contenders.

    As the campaign opened, the country's military rulers told party leaders they were prepared only to approve a French-style Presidential system. This would mean that the Government would be responsible to a popularly elected President -- almost certainly a military man. Thus, the Supreme Revolutionary Council has pre-empted whatever constitutional proposals that might emerge from the first genuine constituent assembly to be elected in Portugal since 1927.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
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