Santa Comba Dão
António de Oliveira Salazar, who was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968 and leader of the "Estado Novo", was born in Vimieiro, Santa Comba Dão on 28 April 1889.
António de Oliveira Salazar
Salazar stayed on as finance minister while military prime ministers came and went. From his first successful year in office, he gradually came to embody the financial and political solution to the turmoil of the military dictatorship, which had not produced a clear leader. Finally, on 5 July 1932, President Carmona appointed Salazar as the 100th prime minister of Portugal, after which he began to operate closer to the mainstream of political sentiment in his country. The authoritarian government consisted of a right-wing coalition, and he was able to co-opt the moderates of each political current with the aid of censorship and repression directed against those outside of it. Those perceived to be genuine fascists were jailed or exiled. Conservative Catholics were Salazar's earliest and most loyal supporters, whereas conservative republicans who could not be co-opted became his most dangerous opponents during the early period. They attempted several coups, but never presented a united front, consequently these attempts were easily repressed. Never a true monarchist, Salazar nevertheless gained most of the monarchists' support, as Manuel II of Portugal, the exiled and deposed last king of Portugal, always endorsed Salazar. Later, in 1932, it was due to Salazar's actions that the deposed king was given a state funeral. The National Syndicalists were torn between supporting the regime and denouncing it as bourgeois. They were granted enough symbolic concessions for Salazar to win over the moderates, but the rest were repressed by the political police. They were silenced shortly after 1933 as Salazar attempted to prevent the rise of National Socialism in Portugal.