The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, will this Friday posthumously award General Pires Veloso and the Commando Association in commemoration of November 25, a date he considers decisive for the institutionalization of democracy.
This award ceremony, which will take place at the Belém Palace in Lisbon at 19:00, was included in the agenda of the head of state this Friday and highlighted in a note published on the official website of the President of the Republic. Internet.
“The President of the Republic, who is returning to Lisbon this afternoon, will symbolically mark November 25th by posthumously awarding General Pires Veloso, as well as the Commando Association, at the Belém Palace,” the note reads.
Throughout his mandate, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa celebrated November 25, 1975, several times. For example, in 2019, he invited General António Ramalho Eanes to lunch on this day.
“I invited President Ramallo Eanes to symbolize that November 25 is a national date. This means that, consequently, this is a date that belongs to everyone, it is not a date that can be divided, divided, an object of opportunistic struggle. “, justified at the time by arguing that it should be invoked in a “spirit of unity”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said that Eanes “represents the unity on 25 November better than anyone because he was the central figure on 25 November” and stressed that “he was the first democratically elected president of Portugal”. Presidential Election 27 June 1976
In April of this year, when asked whether November 25, 1975 also fits into the program for celebrating the 50th anniversary of April 25, 1974, the head of state replied: “Of course, he deserves it. I have always pointed this out. does not come to the beginning, which is the prehistory of the prehistory of April 25, comes later.”
General Pires Veloso, who died in August 2014 at the age of 88, was one of the main players on November 25, in which the so-called moderate wing of the Movement of the Armed Forces (MFA) won.
There is no generally accepted version of the events of this date, when the opposing armed forces clashed on the ground and which marked the end of the so-called revolutionary process in progress (PREC).