Portugal

THE GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM

Assembly of the Republic, Lisbon
Courtesy Andrea Matles Savada

Portugal made remarkable political progress after 1974. It replaced the authoritarian-corporatist regime of Salazar, and, as of the beginning of the 1990s, the country appeared to have successfully made the transition to democracy. Although political and governmental problems remained, the government was popularly elected, it functioned according to the constitution, and, since the mid-1980s, had done so with notable stability. The successful transition to democracy in the Iberian Peninsula since the mid1970s (in Spain, as well as in Portugal) may be thought of as one of the most significant political transformations of the late twentieth century.

Data as of January 1993