Spinola President

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33534, 15 May 1974, Page 13

Spinola President

(N.Z. Press Assn —Copyright)

LISBON, May 14

General Antonio de Spinola had been named President of Portugal and had formed a Government, the ruling military junta announced today.

A spokesman for the junta said the new members of the Government would not be announced until General Spinola formally took office in a ceremony tomorrow.

A Lisbon lawyer, Mr Adelino da Palma Carlos, aged 59, is expected to be named Prime Minister. The Government Mr da Palma is expected to head will be provisional until elections f..r a constituent assembly can be held. General Spinola says this will take place within a year.

The Government is expected to include Communists and Socialists as well as military men.

The junta will become the Council of State and function as a watchdog commission over the Cabinet. General Spinola, as president, would retain power to remove the Prime Minister.

The spokesman said that! rather than take an oath of; office General Spinola would [sign a document announcing [through the junta that he had I assumed the powers of the President of Portugal. Meanwhile, Portugal’s leadling soldier returns to Lisbon

today to give a crucial first- > hand report on the situation! I in its African territories. General Francisco da Costa Gomes, the Armed Forces Chief of Staff and the secondranking member of the junta, made his three-day visito to Mozambique and Angola to size up the position. The new Government will face the urgent task of drawing up detailed proposals for the future of the three African territories to end 13 years of guerrilla warfare which has drained Portugal’s sagging economy. In Biera, General Costa Gomes met with an angry reaction from white settlers to his offer of a cease-fire to the. African guerrillas, without previous military surrender. Newspapers in Lisbon have predicted that the job of Foreign Minister will go to Dr Mario Soares, the Socialist Party leader who

• I returned from French exile i|after the coup. Press censorship was an t even more important weapon .of oppression for the ’ recently-ousted Government in Portugal than the political ’ police, Dr Soares said in a message issued in Kyoto, 1 Japan, today. The message was delivered t to the more than 300 delef gates attending the general > assembly of the International ! Press Institute, which Portu- ! guese journalists are attendi ing for the first time. ! The message said: “Fascism has been able to survive [ in Portugal for 48 years be- , cause of the existence of . censorship. i “Censorship and control of . information have been the . absolute weapon of the regime, even more important than the political police.” i Dr Soares added that press i freedom was essential for the i construction of modern Pori tugal.