Mario Soares, Portuguese statesman who negotiated handover of Macau to China, dies aged 92
A co-founder of the moderate Socialist Party, Soares was also credited with helping counter the Communist Party’s attempt to win more power after the almost bloodless revolution
Mario Soares, the prime minister who helped consolidate Portugal’s transition to democracy and became the first freely elected premier after a revolution ended almost five decades of fascist dictatorship, has died. He was 92.
Soares was president of Portugal during the negotiations with Beijing in the late 1980s which secured the return of Macau to Chinese sovereignty in 1999 – eight years before the original 2007 date Lisbon had in mind.
The loss of Soares is the loss of someone who is irreplaceable in our recent history – we owe him a lot
In 1991, as president, he also appointed the last governor of Macau, his friend General Vasco Rocha Vierra, and made a private visit to the city prior to the handover in December 1999.
“The loss of Soares is the loss of someone who is irreplaceable in our recent history – we owe him a lot,” said Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa from New Delhi, during his state visit.
The government declared three days of mourning starting on Monday, with a state funeral planned, Costa told television station SIC Noticias.
Soares, who was arrested a dozen times in his fight against Antonio de Oliveira Salazar’s dictatorship, returned from exile in Paris after the 1974 Carnation Revolution. That year, he was appointed foreign minister in a provisional government and was in charge of negotiating the independence of Portugal’s overseas colonies.
Much later in the 1980s, Soares became embroiled in a scandal over the financing of the Socialist Party of Portugal, in which there were allegations a former Grand Master Masonic leader and former minister under Soares tried to take a suitcase of money from Macau to Portugal.