ICS Working Papers Nº2/2016

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ICS WORKING PAPERS 2016
The development of Salazar’s constitutional project at the beginning of the 1930s and the
institutions defined by him were symptomatic of the role of the various conservative currents
supporting the dictatorship and the role of the military. The first project called for a
corporatist system for the election of both the president and parliament; however, between
this and the project presented to the public in 1932 many changes were introduced by Salazar
and his council of notables. In the 1932 project, there was a legislature of 90 deputies, half
elected by direct suffrage and half by corporatist suffrage. This project was strongly criticized
by some republican military officials as well as by the followers of Lusitanian Integralism (IL –
Integralismo Lusitano) and Francisco Rolão Preto’s NS while the church was more concerned
with the absence of God in the constitution. Republican military officials criticized the
corporatization of representation while the MNS and the IL believed the constitution had
given up too much ground to republican liberalism. President Carmona and Salazar were
mainly worried by the distribution of powers between them.
Although seen as a model corporatist regime at the end of the 1930s, the final version
approved by Salazar and submitted to a plebiscite was a compromise. Portugal became ‘a
unitary and corporatist republic’, but the president and the National Assembly were elected
through direct – not corporatist – suffrage. In fact, the constitution opted for a single
chamber, with a national assembly occupied exclusively by deputies selected by the single
party, the UN, and elected by direct suffrage; however, it also created a consultative
corporatist chamber composed of functional representatives. The National Assembly had few
powers before an executive free of parliamentary ties; however, the corporatist chamber was
to be a consultative body. The Portuguese corporatist chamber, which was made up of 109
procurators and whose meetings were private, remained a consultative body for both the
government and the National Assembly.
The longevity of the Portuguese regime and some research into Salazar’s corporatist chamber
allows us to reach some conclusions (which, unfortunately, cannot be generalized given the
absence of comparative data) about functional representation. Despite the great majority of
procurators in the chamber representing functional interests, a small group of administrative
interests were nominated by the corporatist council that was led by the dictator and which
constituted the chamber’s elite. In practice, these ‘political’ procurators, making up an
average of 15 per cent of all procurators, controlled the chamber.
An analysis of a large number of the corporatist chamber’s ‘advisory opinions’ during the first
decade of its operation allows us to conclude that its function within the framework of the
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