Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa

Marcelo Nuno Duarte Rebelo de Sousa (born 12 December 1948) is a Portuguese politician and academic who served as the president of Portugal from 2016 to 2026. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party, though he suspended his party membership for the duration of his presidency. Rebelo de Sousa has previously served as a government minister, parliamentarian in the Assembly of the Republic, legal scholar, journalist, political analyst, law professor, and pundit.

Born in Lisbon, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is the eldest son of Baltazar Rebelo de Sousa (1921–2001) and his wife Maria das Neves Fernandes Duarte (1921–2003). He has claimed that his mother had Jewish ancestry. He is named after Marcelo Caetano, the last prime minister of the Estado Novo regime and a friend of his father.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa became a professor and publicist specialized in constitutional law and administrative law, earning his doctorate at the University of Lisbon, where he taught law.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa started his career during the Estado Novo as a lawyer, and later as a journalist. He joined the Popular Democratic Party, becoming a deputy to the Assembly of the Republic. During that time, he helped draft Portugal's constitution in 1976. Later he rose to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs under Prime Minister Francisco Pinto Balsemão. Together with him he was a co-founder, director and administrator of the Expresso newspaper, owned by Pinto Balsemão. He was also a founder of Sedes. He worked with another newspaper, Semanário, between 1983 and 1987. He started as a political analyst and pundit on the radio broadcaster TSF with his Exams, in which he gave marks (0 to 20) to the main political players.

In 1989 he ran for President of the Municipal Chamber of Lisbon (Mayor of Lisbon) but lost to Jorge Sampaio, though he did win a seat as City Councilor (Vereador). In that campaign he took a plunge into the waters of the Tagus River to prove they were not polluted despite claims to the contrary. In other local elections, he also became the president of the Municipal Assembly of Cascais (1979–1982) and the president of the Municipal Assembly of Celorico de Basto (1997–2009).

Rebelo de Sousa was the leader of the Social Democratic Party from 31 de March 1996 to 1 May 1999. He created a center-right coalition, the Democratic Alliance, with the People's Party in 1998. He became, however, the vice-president of the European People's Party–European Democrats. The coalition did not please large parts of its own party, due to the role the People's Party leader, Paulo Portas, had in undermining Aníbal Cavaco Silva's government while director of the weekly O Independente.

He had a weekly program of political analysis every Sunday on public TV station RTP after previously having a similar program on the private TV station TVI. President Jorge Sampaio dissolved the Assembly of the Republic, a move that also meant dismissing the Government at a time when it had a stable coalition majority, and calling for anticipated elections, which led to the defeat of Santana Lopes and the election of the Socialists under José Sócrates.

In 2010, he left RTP and returned to TVI to do the same program that he had before.

He was made a member of the Council of State, by President Aníbal Cavaco Silva, and was sworn in on 6 April 2006.

He was a leading figure on the anti-abortion side of the 2007 abortion referendum. He even founded a website titled "Assim Não" (Not like this), which was divulged with a famous introductory video. It became so well known that it was parodied in Saturday Night Live-fashion by famous humour group Gato Fedorento.

On 24 January 2016, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was elected as President of Portugal in the first round of voting. He stood as an independent, appealing for moderation and cross-party consensus. During his election campaign, he promised to repair political divisions and the hardship of Portugal's 2011–14 bailout. Unlike his predecessor, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, he had never previously held a top state position.

In March 2020, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa asked parliament to authorize a state of emergency to contain the COVID-19 pandemic; this marked the first time the country declared a state of emergency nationwide in 46 years of democratic history.

In December 2020, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa announced his intention to run for office again in the 2021 Portuguese presidential election. Marcelo was re-elected president in January 2021, with 60.7% of the votes, the third highest vote margin ever in presidential elections in Portugal since the Carnation Revolution. He was also the first candidate ever to win the vote in all municipalities, ranging from 51.3% in the Beja District to 72.16% in Madeira.

During his presidency, Rebelo de Sousa has publicly supported making restitution and acknowledging abuses made during Portugal's colonialist history and the country's role in the Atlantic slave trade.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa made his first visit as President of Portugal to the Vatican City to meet Pope Francis and the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin on 17 March 2016, followed the same day by a trip to Portugal's neighbour Spain to meet King Felipe VI. In 2019, he joined President Emmanuel Macron for the traditional Bastille Day military parade in Paris, which honoured European military cooperation and the European Intervention Initiative that year.

In December 2017, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa underwent emergency surgery at Curry Cabral Hospital in order to treat an incarcerated umbilical hernia. The procedure was performed by Eduardo Barroso, a friend of the president. He was discharged from the hospital and lauded the Portuguese National Health Service, considering it an important achievement of Portuguese democracy.

In June 2018, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was briefly hospitalized after he collapsed after a visit to Bom Jesus do Monte sanctuary in Braga; the incident was caused by a sudden drop in blood pressure alongside acute gastroenteritis.

In October 2019, he underwent planned cardiac catheterization at Santa Cruz Hospital, Carnaxide, in the outskirts of Lisbon, after accumulated calcium was detected in one of his coronary arteries.

On 8 March 2020, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa suspended all his public agenda and returned to his private home in Cascais, entering a voluntary quarantine period for 14 days after being revealed that a group of students from Felgueiras, who had visited Belém Palace some days before, had also been quarantined after a positive case of COVID-19 was detected in their school. Marcelo subsequently tested negative for the virus and worked remotely for a period during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 11 January 2021, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa tested positive for COVID-19, after a contact with a positive case in his staff. He was reportedly asymptomatic, and canceled his appointments, opting to remain in self-isolation. Three further COVID-19 tests yielded negative results. Some physicians said that a false positive PCR-RT test, although possible, was unlikely, and tentatively attributed the subsequent negative tests to a low viral load. On 13 January, however, the Lisbon and Tagus Valley regional public health authority confirmed that the president was considered to have had a low-risk exposure, and was therefore simply under passive surveillance for two weeks: the president was instructed that he could resume his agenda save for any events in crowded public places.

On 22 July 1972, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa married Ana Cristina da Gama Caeiro da Mota Veiga in the parish of São Miguel de Machede in Évora. His wife, born on 4 June 1950 in the Santos-o-Velho parish of Lisbon, is the daughter of António da Mota Veiga and Maria Emília da Gama Caeiro. In the following years, Sousa and Mota Veiga had two children:

Nuno da Mota Veiga Rebelo de Sousa (b. São Sebastião da Pedreira, Lisbon, 8 August 1973) and

Grand Master of the Honorific Orders of Portugal (2016 – 2026)

Grand Collar of the Military Order of the Tower and Sword (9 March 2021)

Commander of the Order of Saint James of the Sword (9 June 1994)

Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Henry (9 June 2005)

Grand Collar of the Order of Liberty (9 March 2026)

Algeria: Collar of the National Order of Merit (23 May 2023)

Angola: Collar of the Order of Agostinho Neto (6 March 2019)

Austria: Grand Star of the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (12 June 2019)

Belgium: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (22 October 2018)

Brazil: Grand Collar of the Order of the Southern Cross (29 May 2023)