Maria Pintasilgo, 74; Was Portugal’s Only Female Prime Minister
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, 74, the only woman to serve as prime minister of Portugal, died of heart failure Saturday in Lisbon.
Trained as a chemical and industrial engineer, Pintasilgo worked in provisional governments after the 1974 revolution, which ended 30 years of dictatorship in Portugal. She was minister of social affairs and ambassador to UNESCO, among other positions, before serving as prime minister in 1979.
Pintasilgo ran unsuccessfully for president in 1986 as a Socialist Party candidate. She won election to the European Parliament in 1987.
Pedro Santana Lopes, leader of the Social Democrats, called her “a great lady, a person of great value and a woman of causes and ideas.... She was always concerned about the social dimension of politics, worried about the underprivileged.”
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