Presidency
Salazar chose him as the regime's presidential candidate in 1951 to succeed the late Oscar Carmona. As the electoral system was heavily rigged in favour of Salazar's National Union, this made Craveiro Lopes' election a foregone conclusion.
However, he was not content to be a mere puppet, as Carmona had been. As a result, Salazar picked the seemingly more pliant Américo Tomás as the regime's candidate in 1958. The Democratic Opposition then invited Craveiro Lopes to be their candidate, but he knew he stood no chance of winning and refused. The regime, however, as compensation promoted him to Marshal. He was involved in the failed military attempt to overthrow Salazar, in 1961, led by the Defence Minister, general Júlio Botelho Moniz.
He died in Lisbon on 2 September 1964.
Read more about this topic: Francisco Craveiro Lopes
Famous quotes containing the word presidency:
“... how often the Presidency has simply meant that a man shall be abused, distrusted, and worked to death while he is filling the great office, and that he should drop into unmerited oblivion when he has left the White House ...”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)