First Portuguese Republic

The sixteen years of the First Republic saw eight presidents and 45 ministries, and were altogether more of a transition between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Estado Novo than they were a coherent period of governance.

Decline of the Republic[edit]

In the mid-1920s the national and international political scene was favorable to the emergence of an authoritarian solution, through which a strengthened government could impose public order and restore the political situation. The armed forces, whose political interest had increased due to the First World War and whose leaders had not forgotten that the Portuguese Republican Party had sent them to fight when The military themselves warned that they were not ready to fight, they were approaching the conservative forces, considering the reactionary military as "the last bastion" of order against the chaos that was developing throughout the country.


There were links between conservative politicians and military officials, who added their political and corporate demands to the situation. Finally, on 28 May 1926 the Portuguese Revolution of 1926 took place, a coup d'état by the armed forces supported by almost all the political parties that had given up on their plans to establish a stable government and conferred that mission on the army.


As had happened with the coup d'état of Sidónio Pais in 1917, the population of Lisbon did not try to protect the Republic, and the left parties themselves and their unions refused to resist the coup, allowing authority to pass into the hands of the army. With this began a military dictatorship that would maintain the formal structure of the Republic, but whose authoritarianism would slowly lead to the autocratic regime known as Estado Novo in the year 1932. The Estado Novo would remain in power without interruptions until 1974, when it would be overthrown by the Carnation Revolution and the Third Portuguese Republic would be established and democracy established in the country.