Portugal's first republic got through 45 governments in just 16 years
Between the revolution of 5 October 1910 and a military coup on 28 May 1926, Portugal had eight presidents and 45 ministries. The First Republic was less a stable system than a turbulent bridge between monarchy and António de Oliveira Salazar's long-lived Estado Novo.
The 1910 uprising drove out King Manuel II, and a republican constitution followed in 1911, creating a two-chamber parliamentary system with a weak presidency. The new regime split society, setting it against a largely monarchist countryside, the trade unions and the Catholic Church. Even the republicans fractured: conservatives broke away into the Evolutionist and Republican Union parties, leaving Afonso Costa's Democratic Party as the dominant force. With little democratic tradition and most factions demanding radical change after the stagnation blamed on the House of Braganza, opponents turned to violence to reach power.
The Democrats saw the First World War as a chance to guard against a Spanish invasion and foreign seizure of the colonies, and to rally the nation around the republic. It backfired. Entry into the war in 1917 lacked public support, Portugal sent nearly 12,000 troops to France while German colonial forces invaded Mozambique, and money shortages left the army unready for a European conflict. Arguments over the war deepened divisions and opened the way to two short dictatorships, under Pimenta de Castro in 1915 and Sidonio Pais from 1917 to 1918, nicknamed the President-King.
Pais's regime, known as Sidonism or Dezembrismo, blended some modernising elements with methods later adopted by the authoritarian regimes of the 1920s and 1930s. He governed through personal charisma and appeals to the fatherland, tried to sideline the traditional parties in favour of a corporatist senate and a single National Republican Party, and pursued an interventionist economy while persecuting unions. He also sought to restore order and make the republic more palatable to monarchists and Catholics.
None of it brought lasting stability. The 1926 coup installed the Ditadura Nacional, a military dictatorship, which paved the way for Salazar's corporatist Estado Novo.
Source: First Portuguese Republic
