Pedro Manuel Mamede Passos Coelho (European Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpeðɾu mɐˈnwɛl mɐˈmɛðɨ ˈpasuʃ ˈkwɐʎu]; born 24 July 1964) is a Portuguese politician and university guest lecturer who was the
117th prime minister of Portugal, in office from 2011 to 2015. He was the leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) between 2010 and 2018.
Passos Coelho started very early in politics and was the national leader of the youth branch of PSD. He led the XIX Governo Constitucional (19th Constitutional Government of Portugal) and the XX Governo Constitucional (20th Constitutional Government of Portugal) as head of government from 21 June 2011 to 26 November 2015. His term in office oversaw the application of the European troika bailout to Portugal (requested by the previous Prime Minister, José Sócrates of the Socialist Party) and was marked by a wave of widespread austerity in both Portugal and abroad.
Pedro Passos Coelho was born in the parish of Sé Nova in Coimbra, Portugal, on 24 July 1964. He is the youngest son of a medical doctor, António Passos Coelho (born in Vale de Nogueiras, Vila Real, 31 May 1926 – 4 February 2019) and Maria Rodrigues Santos Mamede (born in Santana da Serra, Ourique, c. 1930), a nurse whom António married in 1955. He has an older sister, Maria Teresa Mamede Passos Coelho, a medical doctor, and an older brother, Miguel Mamede Passos Coelho, who was born with cerebral palsy.
He spent his childhood in Angola — then an overseas territory of Portugal after it had been colonised by the Portuguese since the 16th century — where his father practised medicine. After the Carnation Revolution in 1974 and the independence of the territory as the People's Republic of Angola, he returned with his family to Europe and settled in Vila Real, in northern Portugal.
He started very early in politics, as a 14-year-old boy, and had a long and prominent career in the youth branch of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the JSD, where he was a member of the National Council (1980–1982). As a young student, his academic interests, vocations and ambitions were directed towards a future career in medicine, to follow his father and older sister's steps, or instead mathematics. However, his largest ambition and vocation revolved around politics.
Passos Coelho moved to Africa at five years of age, and studied in basic schools of the cities of Silva Porto and later Luanda, in the former Portuguese territory of Angola, until the age of 10. His parents went to the Portuguese African territory of Angola to work there among the native rural populations who were plagued by tropical diseases such as tuberculosis. Firstly, Coelho studied in a nun-run Catholic school, then in the public school, and again in another Catholic school run by the Marist Brothers. Then, after the Carnation Revolution in 1974, and the dismantling of the Portuguese Overseas Empire in Africa, he returned to Europe, settling in his grandparents estate, in Vale de Nogueiras, near the city of Vila Real, Norte Region, Portugal. His father only rejoined the family in 1975, the year that Angola became an independent territory known as the People's Republic of Angola. To attend a secondary education institution in Vila Real, the Liceu Nacional Camilo Castelo-Branco (Camilo Castelo-Branco National High School), he moved to the city.
He worked for the youth branch of the PSD party, preparing motions and documents, and these time-consuming tasks impacted his final high school grades. As his desire had been to pursue Medicine – as had his father and his sister – he reduced his political activities for a year to focus on studying (a school year which he had to repeat), aiming to improve his grades in order to reach the high marks needed to enroll at a medical school in Lisbon; during this time, when he was 18 years old, he also started working as a math teacher in Vila Pouca de Aguiar. His final high school average mark was 16.8 (out of 20), which was 0.2 values short of what was necessary to be admitted into Medicine; therefore, he chose to study Mathematics at Faculdade de Ciências de Lisboa. He did not, however, finish his degree, having instead elected to work full-time in his party's youth branch – his new life in the capital city of Portugal having probably been a driving factor in this decision. In 1987, he was elected vice-president of JSD, and president in 1991. The following year, aged 24 years old, his first child was born to Fátima Padinha, a former member of the girl band Doce who he would later marry.
After dropping out of the University of Lisbon, he would enrol in 1999 in the Lusíada University, where he would obtain a degree in economics in 2001, when he was 37 years old. By then he had already been member of the parliament between 1991 and 1999, among other attributions (he worked in a public relations capacity during the late 1980s at Qimibro, a metals broker and trading firm founded by José Manuel Bento dos Santos and Eduardo Catroga, after invitation of a cousin who worked there).
Starting very early in politics, he had a long career in the youth branch of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the JSD, where he was a member of the National Council (1980–1982) and chairman of the Political Committee (1990–1995). He was a Lisbon deputy to the Assembly of the Republic in the VI and VII Legislatures (1991–1999); he also joined the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO (1991–1995) and was vice chairman of the Parliamentary Group of PSD (1996–1999). In 1997, he ran for mayor of Amadora without success, but was elected municipal councillor (1997–2001). After he had been a member of the parliament from 1991 to 1999, Passos Coelho became eligible by law to a life pension; however, he declined the offer.
He was awarded a degree in economics by Lusíada University (Lisbon) when he was 37 (2001). He became a consultant with Tecnoformas (2000–2004), collaborator of LDN Consultants (2001–2004), Director of the Training Department and coordinator of the Program of Seminars URBE – Núcleos Urbanos de Pesquisa e Intervenção (2003–2004). He joined the company Fomentinvest as a CFO (2004–2006) working with Ângelo Correia, chairman of Fomentinvest and also a noted member of PSD. Correia, an experienced member of PSD, is a close friend of Passos Coelho, both inside their party and corporate governance careers, and is considered Passos Coelho's political mentor. Passos Coelho became a member of the Executive (in 2007), accumulating the functions of chairman of the Board of the HLCTejo (2007–2009).
He was vice-president of PSD during the leadership of Luís Marques Mendes (2005–2006) and has also been president of the Municipal Assembly of Vila Real Municipality since 2005; he was a presidential candidate for PSD in May 2008, where he proposed for the first time a programmatic review of the party's orientation. Defeated by Manuela Ferreira Leite, he founded, with a group of his supporters, the think-tank Construir Ideias (Building Ideas). On 21 January 2010, his book Mudar ("To Change") was published, and he was again a candidate for the leadership of PSD for the direct elections in March 2010; he was elected president of PSD on 26 March 2010.
By 2010, in a context of sovereign default, he helped defeat the Socialist government under the leadership of José Sócrates when it tried to adopt a package of austerity measures to maintain economic stability, leading to the resignation of the prime minister on 23 March 2011, and the general election of 5 June 2011.
On 5 June 2011, following the 2011 Portuguese legislative election, Passos Coelho was elected Prime Minister of Portugal. He achieved a historical win for his political party PSD, defeating José Sócrates from the Socialist Party (PS). Through a coalition with CDS-PP, Passos Coelho and PSD were in a position to form a right-wing majority in the Portuguese Parliament. Immediately after the election, he started conversations with Christian Democratic President Paulo Portas to form the coalition.