Maria de Lourdes Ruivo da Silva de Matos Pintasilgo (18 January 1930 – 10 July 2004) was a Portuguese chemical engineer and politician. She was the first and to date only woman to serve as Prime Minister of Portugal, and the second woman to serve as prime minister in Western Europe, after Margaret Thatcher.
Early life
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo was born to a middle-class family in 1930. Her father, Jaime de Matos Pintasilgo (born Covilhã, Conceição, 9 December 1896 – died Lisbon, Socorro, 10 October 1959) was in the wool business, and her mother was Amélia do Carmo Ruivo da Silva, a native of Vendas Novas. Her parents married in Abrantes on 14 March 1929.
Her father, Jaime, abandoned the family and at school she tried hard to hide that, thus causing her to avoid usual relationships. At the age of seven, she was sent to the Liceu Filipa de Lencastre, a secondary school, in Lisbon. She distinguished herself in the Mocidade Portuguesa, a militaristic youth movement founded by Dictator Salazar. Later she joined Acção Católica (Catholic Action). During her years at the Instituto Superior Técnico from where she earned a degree in industrial chemical engineering, she joined and eventually led the Catholic's women's student movement. After completing the program, she began working for a large Portuguese conglomerate with interests in cement plants, Companhia União Fabril, the "CUF". During her time in office she pushed to modernize the out-dated social welfare system. She left her mark by making social security universal and improving health care, education, and labor legislation in Portugal.
Pintasilgo was the first woman to run for president in 1986. She ran as an independent and received 7% of the votes. The following year she was elected to the European Parliament as a member of the Socialist Party which she held until 1989.". The commission's report was published in 1996 under the title: "Caring for the Future, Making the Next Decades Provide a Life Worth Living", edited by Oxford University Press.
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo died of cardiac arrest at her home in Lisbon on 10 July 2004, aged 74. She was buried in Prazeres Cemetery, in Lisbon.
Electoral history
Presidential election, 1986
|-
! rowspan="2" colspan="2" |Candidate
! colspan="2" |First round
! colspan="2" |Second round
|-
! Votes
! align="center" style="width: 50px"|%
! Votes
! align="center" style="width: 50px"|%
|-
| style="background:;"|
| align=left |Mário Soares || 1,443,683 || 25.4 || 3,010,756 || 51.2
|-
| style="background:;"|
| align=left |Diogo Freitas do Amaral || 2,629,597 || 46.3 || 2,872,064 || 48.8
|-
| style="background:green;"|
| align=left |Francisco Salgado Zenha || 1,185,867 || 20.9
|-
| style="background:;"|
| align=left |Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo || 418,961 || 7.4
|-
| colspan="2" align="left"| Blank/Invalid ballots
| 64,626 || – || 54,280 || –
|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
| colspan="2" align="left"| Turnout
| 5,742,734 || 75.39 || 5,937,100 || 77.99
|-
| colspan="6" align=left|Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
|}
European Parliament election, 1987
|-
! colspan="2" | Party
! Candidate
! Votes
! align="center" style="width: 50px"|%
! align="center" style="width: 50px"|Seats
|-
| style="background:;"|
| align="left"|PSD
| align=left |Pedro Santana Lopes || 2,111,828 || 37.5 || 10
|-
| style="background:;"|
| align="left"|PS
| align=left |Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo || 1,267,672 || 22.5 || 6
|-
| style="background:;"|
| align="left"| CDS
| align=left |Lucas Pires || 868,718 || 15.4 || 4
|-
| style="background:;"|
| align="left"| CDU
| align=left |Ângelo Veloso || 648,700 || 11.5 || 3
|-
| style="background:green;"|
| align="left"| PRD
| align=left |Medeiros Ferreira || 250,158 || 4.4 || 1
|-
| style="background:;"|
| align="left"| PPM
| align=left |Miguel Esteves Cardoso || 155,990 || 2.8 || 0
|-
| style="background:white;"|
| colspan="2" align="left"| Other parties
| 193,869 || 3.4 || 0
|-
| colspan="3" align="left"| Blank/Invalid ballots
| 142,715 || 2.5 || –
|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
| colspan="3" align="left"| Turnout
| 5,639,650 || 72.42 || 24
|-
| colspan="7" align=left|Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
|}
Legacy
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo was a student at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), a university in Portugal. Since 2016, IST promotes the Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo Award aiming to recognize and reward annually two women that graduated at IST, as a way to promote the gender balance policy at IST as well as recognize the crucial role that women have in all fields of Engineering.
Notes
References
Further reading
- Skard, Torild (2014) "Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo" in Women of Power - Half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide, Bristol: Policy Press, .