Adriano Moreira

Adriano José Alves Moreira, ComC GCC GOIH GCSE (6 September 1922 – 23 October 2022) was a Portuguese lawyer, professor and a leading political figure in Portugal throughout the second half of the 20th century.

Education Adriano Moreira was born in Macedo de Cavaleiros, Northern Portugal, son of António José Moreira and wife Leopoldina do Céu Alves, and graduated in Law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon in 1944. Later he would be awarded a doctorate from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Moreira started as a sympathizer of the Portuguese Democratic Opposition movement; his name appeared on a list of signantes of the MUD in 1945. He was the lawyer of the family of General José Marques Godinho, who had been arrested (and who later died in prison) because of his attempt to overthrow the Salazar regime in 1947. The family of the general sued the minister at the time, Fernando Santos Costa, for his alleged responsibility in the death; several members of the family were themselves arrested, as, briefly, was Moreira himself.

With time, Moreira became closer to the Estado Novo. He was chosen to be the Portuguese minister for Overseas Territories in Salazar's cabinet. Noted for the legislative reforms that he introduced during his two years (1961–1963) in this role, he also played a vital part in founding two African institutions of higher education: the Estudos Gerais Universitários de Moçambique and the Estudos Gerais Universitários de Angola. From the 1974 Carnation Revolution until 1976 Moreira lived in Brazil.

Nevertheless, Moreira's influence over the CDS – People's Party, the conservative party of which he was president from 1986 to 1988 and which he represented as a deputy in the Portuguese Parliament between 1980 and 1995, was to be long-lasting. It enabled him to occupy an important place in the development of post-1974 politics. He was Vice-President of the Assembly of the Republic between 1991 and 1995. Meanwhile, he served as a professor at the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas of the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (Technical University of Lisbon). His published works include A Europa em Formação (Lisbon, 1974), Ciência Política (Lisbon, 1979), and Teoria das Relações Internacionais (Coimbra, 1996).

Moreira married Isabel Mónica Maia de Lima Mayer (born at Mercês, Lisbon, on 2 August 1945) on 30 August 1968 at São Martinho, Sintra. Her paternal grandfather had distant Ashkenazi Jewish and Sephardic Jewish ancestry and her paternal grandmother was Irish. The couple had six children. His daughter, Isabel Moreira, is a Deputy in the Assembly of the Republic, representing the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS).

Following his retirement, Moreira was still an influential voice in the country. He was one of the five personalities elected by the Assembly of the Republic to the Council of State on 18 December 2015, and he took office on 12 January 2016, his term having ended after the following election, in 2019.

Moreira turned 100 on 6 September 2022, and died on 23 October. He was the longest lived politician in the history of Portuguese democracy.

Legislative election, 1987

Candidate Votes

Affiliations, awards, decorations Affiliations Member of the Academia Brasileira de Letras, Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Academia de Marinha, Academia de Ciencias Morales y Politicas de Madrid and Academia Portuguesa da História.

Awards Doctor Honoris Causa by the Aberta University, University of Beira Interior, and University of Aveiro in Portugal; and by the Universities of Manaus, Brasília, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil.

Decorations