Collision course in Portugal

Press, 14 April 1980, Page 8

Collision course in Portugal

NZPA-Reuter Lisbon Portugal’s ruling Rightwing alliance, set a collision course with its military opponents yesterday by choosing a fiercely anti-commun-ist general to run in this year’s Presidential elections. Political and military sources said it was a foregone Conclusion that General Antonio da Silva Soares Carneiro, aged 52, would be the alliance’s candidate. He spent months in prison in 1975 at the height of the country’s revolutionary fervour.

The sources said he had been chosen by the Social Democratic Party, the dominant partner in the alliance, and an official announcement was expected this

week after meetings by the parties making up the alliance.

. The .choice of General Soares Carneiro would not please the Military Council of the Revolution, a constitutional watchdog body. Earlier, the council, under the chairmanship of President Antonio Ramalho Eanes, threw out a Government- bill to throw open key sectors of the economy, including banking, to private investment for the first time since the. nationalist revolution of 1975. General Eanes has not said whether he -will seek re-election, but is expected to reveal his intentions _in a key speech on April 25 to mark the sixth anniversary of the revolution.