TV viewers chose dictator Salazar as top Portuguese

LISBON: Viewers of a popular Portuguese television programme have voted dictator Antonio Salazar as "The Greatest Portuguese" by a wide margin, angering many of those who remember his repressive regime.   

Salazar was chosen by 41 per cent of viewers, beating communist leader Alvaro Cunhal and historic figures such as Portugal's first king, D. Afonso Henriques, romantic poet Luis de Camoes and explorer Vasco da Gama, state broadcaster RTP said.    

"Only masochists, imbeciles or the insane could have voted for this executioner as the greatest Portuguese," wrote one viewer on the programme's website (www.rtp.pt).

"Let him remain where he is -- in the rubbish bin of history."   

Another viewer had vowed to leave the country, one of western Europe's youngest democracies, if Salazar won the contest.    Salazar was the founder of an authoritarian right-wing regime that controlled Portugal's economic, social and cultural life from 1933 to 1974, when an almost bloodless military-led coup changed Portugal into a democracy.   

Cunhal, one of the most pro-Soviet communist leaders in western Europe who became a major political force when Salazar's regime fell in 1974, received 19 per cent of the votes.   

RTP did not give the final number of viewers who voted, but in the first part of the programme 90,000 cast their ballots. The show was one of RTP's most popular in recent years.   

More than 2,000 names had been included in the list of top Portuguese but 10 were short listed in January on the basis of viewers' votes.   

British viewers have chosen Winston Churchill as the greatest Briton in a similar programme while Charles de Gaulle was chosen in France.