Alfredo de Sá Cardoso

Alfredo Ernesto de Sá Cardoso (June 6, 1864 in Lisbon – April 24, 1950 in Lisbon), commonly known as Alfredo de Sá Cardoso (Portuguese pronunciation: [aɫˈfɾedu eɾˈnɛʃtu dɨ ˈsa kɐɾˈdozu]), or just Sá Cardoso, was a Portuguese republican politician of the Portuguese First Republic, who served twice as Prime Minister of Portugal.

Sá Cardoso was the son of Adelaide Leopoldina de Sá Cardoso. He would eventually marry Gabriel Moreira and had issue. After his first studies, he entered the Colégio Militar (Military College) and, then in the Escola do Exército (Army School), where he studies in the branch of artillery. He became an officer of the army and progressed in his career (second lieutenant, 1886; first lieutenant, 1888; captain, 1900; major, 1911; lieutenant-colonel, 1915; colonel, 1917) that would take him to the post of general.

He was mobilized in the Luanda military campaign, occupying the post of secretary of the district government (from 1888), and governor of the fortress of São Paulo de Luanda, and in the years 1917–1918, he was integrated in the Corpo Expedicionário Português (Portuguese Expeditionary Corp). He also served as a vogal of the Council for Ballistic Works.

He was a member of the Portuguese Republican Party, a member of the respective Consultative Junta (1913) and chief of the party (in 1919). He became linked with the Reconstitution Party, which he founded with Álvaro de Castro, and with the Republican Action, of which he was president.

Since 1893 he was a free mason, being initiated in the Portugal Shop with the symbolic name of Alaíde, ascending to the 33rd degree, and being part of its Supreme Council since 1934.

He was an active participant in the republican campaign, since the days of the Portuguese Constitutional Monarchy, taking part in the events of January 31, 1890 and January 28, 1908.

He integrated the Military Committee for the proclamation of the Portuguese Republic and was active in the October 5, 1910 revolution. With the republican triumph, he was a cabinet chief of Correia Barreto (1910–1911) and, then, Civil Governor of the Autonomous District of Funchal (1913–1914). Being a member of the so-called group Jovem Turquia (Young Turkey), he co-organized the May 14, 1915 revolutionary movement.

He took part in the resistance against the revolt of Sidónio Pais of December 5, 1917, being imprisoned between 1918 and 1919. In this last years, faithful to his republican beliefs he participated in the offensive against the Monarchy of the North. He served as deputy, for Viana do Castelo, in 1913, 1915, 1919 and 1922, presiding the Chamber of Deputies in the last.

He became President of the Ministry (Prime Minister) on June 29, 1919 and served for almost a year until January 15, 1920. On the same day Francisco José Fernandes Costa was taking office, but due to the political instability of the First Republic, he was forced to resign during the same day (his government was called the "Five Minutes Government"). Sá Cardoso was invited again to form government and he was Prime Minister again from January 16 to 21, 1920, accumulating the Interior (same period) and Foreign Affairs (from June 29 to July 12, 1919). He would participate in another government (of Álvaro de Castro) occupying the post of Minister of Interior between December 18, 1923 and July 6, 1924.

With the May 28, 1926 revolution that installed the Ditadura Nacional (National Dictatorship), a military dictatorial administration that would be followed by António de Oliveira Salazar's authoritarian Estado Novo (New State), Alfredo de Sá Cardoso was again arrested in 1926, and forced to live in a regime of fixed residence, first in Cape Verde and then in the Azores, between 1927 and 1933.

He returned to mainland Portugal in 1934 to found the Republican Alliance. Until the end of his life he refused any political post. He died in Lisbon on April 24, 1950.