Salazar’s Estado Novo: the Constitution of 1933, 1933

Salazar’s Estado Novo: the Constitution of 1933

A plebiscite approved the corporatist constitution drawn up under António de Oliveira Salazar, founding the Estado Novo (“New State”) — an authoritarian regime that ruled Portugal and its empire for 41 years.

Date

19 March 1933exact date

Place

Lisbontoday: Lisbon, Portugal · Western and Central Europe

Participants

António de Oliveira Salazar, Estado Novo (Portugal)

Threads

History of Portugal since the Battle of Aljubarrota

Also known as

Estado Novo; Constituição de 1933; Новое государство; Салазаризм

The military dictatorship that followed the coup of 28 May 1926 made the economist Salazar finance minister in April 1928 with the power to veto the spending of every ministry; in 1932 he became prime minister. The new constitution, published a year in advance, was put to a plebiscite on 19 March 1933: officially only about 6,000 voted against it, and abstentions — by some counts almost 490,000 — were counted as votes in favour. Women with secondary education voted for the first time.

The Estado Novo was an authoritarian corporatist state that drew on Catholic social teaching and partly on Italian Fascism. It relied on censorship and the political police (PVDE, later PIDE), kept Portugal neutral in the Second World War and joined NATO as a founding member in 1949. It proclaimed Portugal a single “pluricontinental” nation that could not give up its overseas provinces. After Salazar’s stroke in 1968 Marcelo Caetano led the regime until its fall on 25 April 1974.

Connections

Causes and preconditions

5 October 1910 revolution — Portugal becomes a republic5 October 1910 · Western and Central Europethe instability of the First Republic ended in the military coup of 1926, from which Salazar’s regime emerged

Consequences

Portuguese Colonial War4 February 1961 – 25 April 1974 · Africathe doctrine of an indivisible, “pluricontinental” Portugal ruled out negotiations with the African independence movements

Related events

Carnation Revolution25 April 1974 · Western and Central Europethe end of the regime founded in 1933

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