- Sampaio, Jorge
- (1939- )Lawyer, socialist politician and leader, and president of the republic (1996-2006). Born in Lisbon, his father a physician and his mother a domestic with an experience of education in England and a knowledge of English, Sampaio was educated in leading Lisbon high schools. In 1961, he took a law degree in the Faculty of Law, University of Lisbon. Active as a student leader early on, especially in oppositionist student movements that criticized the Estado Novo during 1959-62 at the University of Lisbon, Sampaio began to practice law in 1963.Following association with more radical leftist groups, Sampaio joined the Socialist Party (PS) in 1978 and, in 1979, became part of that party's leadership. During 1979-83, he was a PS deputy in the Assembly of the Republic. Reelected as a deputy to that body in the 1985 and 1987 elections, he was elected secretary-general of the PS in 1989. In the local elections of December 1989, he was elected president of the Câmara Municipal, Lisbon, a key position, and he continued in that arduous post until he was elected president of the republic in the general elections of January 1996. In the January 2001 elections, he was reelected to the same post. His second term expired in 2006.
Historical dictionary of Portugal 3rd ed.. by Douglas L. Wheeler . 2014.