Word: premier
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...surprise choice as Premier...
...director of the Bank of Portugal, last week. So it had. President António Ramalho Eanes had ended a two-week-long government crisis by tapping his favorite industrial technocrat, Consulting Engineer Alfredo Nobre da Costa, 55, to follow Socialist Party Leader Mário Soares as Premier...
...want to go. As leader of the largest single parliamentary bloc, he felt that Eanes would have to call him back to mediate the standoff resulting from his departure, or else call elections not scheduled to be held until 1980. Soares, Portugal's first freely elected Premier since the April 1974 revolution, was as surprised as everyone else by Eanes' choice - and more bitter than many. He said the move was "unconstitutional...
...necessarily. Although Portugal's constitution constrains the President to "take into consideration the results of elections," Eanes seems to take the interpretation that he can ask anyone he wants to be Premier - so long as that person can form a Cabinet, present an acceptable program to parliament within ten days and then survive a confidence vote. His choice of Nobre da Costa indicates Eanes' feeling that administrative competence is more desirable at the moment than political popularity. Nobre da Costa is being presented to the country as a transitional Premier with a mandate to restore confidence...
...Soares' government - at Eanes' insistence. Nobre da Costa is known as a free-enterpriser who gets things done no matter how many toes he has to step on. Says an auto executive: "I didn't exactly reach for a bottle of champagne when he was named [Premier], but I must admit that he will inspire confidence among businessmen...