Passos Coelho, Pedro

Passos Coelho, Pedro

(Pedro Manuel Mamede Passos Coelho) (pĕ`drō pä`so͞osh kwĕl`o͞o), 1964–, Portuguese political leader, grad. Lusíada Univ., Lisbon, 2001. The son of a doctor, he spent some of his childhood in Angola (then a Portuguese territory), returning with his family in 1974. He became a member of the youth division of the center-right Social Democratic party (PSD) at 14 and rose to hold youth leadership positions. From 1991 to 1999 he served in the parliament, but he then (2001–6) was a manager in various businesses and was active in local politics. In 2010 he became PSD leader and, amid an ongoing economic and government debt crisis, he led the PSD to victory in the June, 2011, elections and became premier of a PSD–Popular party coalition government. Amid a deepening recession, his government has enacted a series of austerity measures as a condition of international aid. Passos's coalition won the most seats but lost its majority in the 2015 elections, and his government subsequently lost a confidence vote. He stepped down as PSD leader in 2018.