Mário Sottomayor Cardia

Mário Augusto Sottomayor Leal Cardia (19 May 1941 – 17 November 2006) was a Portuguese journalist, professor and politician who served as Minister of Education and Culture from 1976 until 1978.

Biography Sottomayor Cardia was born in 1941 in Matosinhos. He was expelled from high school after supporting the secession of the Portuguese India. He studied Law in the University of Lisbon, later changing his studies to Philosophy.

He was supported Humberto Delgado's candidacy in the 1958 presidential election and, in 1963, joined the Portuguese Communist Party. He was a candidate in the 1965 and 1969 legislative elections within the CDE lists, being arrested by the PIDE in 1970. During his time in prison, he was tortured and brutally beaten, having suffered a lesion in his retina and become temporarily blind.

In 1971, Cardia left the PCP and was one of the founding members of the Socialist Party in 1973.

After the Carnation Revolution, he was elected to the Constituent Assembly and, in 1976, he joined Mário Soares' governments, firstly as Minister of Education and Scientific Investigation from 1976 until 1978, and then as Minister of Education and Culture in 1978.

Following the 1983 legislative election, he returned to the Assembly of the Republic.

In March 1994, Sottomayor Cardia announced his candidacy for President in the 1996 presidential election, stating that he was the best candidate from the PS to beat Aníbal Cavaco Silva. He presented his candidacy in the São Bento Palace, with the presence of former Lisbon Mayor Aquilino Ribeiro Machado, but he ended up withrawing due to the lack of support of the party, which ended up supporting Jorge Sampaio.

Sottomayor Cardia died in 2006 in Lisbon, at 65 years old.