Estado Novo (Portugal)

Estado Novo (Portugal)

The Estado Novo (, "New State"), or the Second Republic, was the corporatist authoritarian regime installed in Portugal in 1933. It was established following the army-led coup d'état of 28 May 1926 against the democratic but unstable First Republic. The Estado Novo, greatly inspired by conservative and authoritarian ideologies, was developed by António de Oliveira Salazar, ruler of Portugal from 1932 to 1968, when he fell ill.

Opposed to communism, socialism, liberalism, and anti-colonialism, the pro-Roman Catholic Estado Novo regime advocated the retention of Portuguese colonies as a pluricontinental empire. Under the Estado Novo Portugal preserved a vast, centuries-old empire with a total area of 2,168,071 km2. Fiercely criticized by most of the international community after World War II and the European decolonization, the regime and its secret police repressed elemental civil liberties and political freedoms in order to remain in power, and to avoid communist influence and the dissolution of its coveted empire.

The country joined the United Nations (UN) in 1955, and was a founding member of NATO (1949), OECD (1961), and EFTA (1960). In 1968 Marcelo Caetano was appointed the new head of government. On 25 April 1974, the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon, a military coup organized by left-wing Portuguese military officers – the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) – overthrew the Estado Novo regime. It is considered that the Estado Novo, jointly with the Ditadura Nacional, forms the historical period of the Portuguese Second Republic.