Adriano Moreira was born in
Macedo de Cavaleiros,
Northern Portugal, son of António José Moreira and wife Leopoldina do Céu Alves, and graduated in
Law from the Faculty of Law of the
University of Lisbon in 1944. Later he would be awarded a
doctorate from the
Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Moreira started as a sympathizer of the Portuguese Democratic Opposition movement; his name appeared on a list of signantes of the
MUD in 1945. He was the lawyer of the family of General
José Marques Godinho, who had been arrested (and who later died in prison) because of his attempt to overthrow the Salazar regime in 1947. The family of the general sued the minister at the time,
Fernando Santos Costa, for his alleged responsibility in the death; several members of the family were themselves arrested, as, briefly, was Moreira himself. With time, Moreira became closer to the
Estado Novo. He was chosen to be the Portuguese minister for Overseas Territories in Salazar's cabinet. Noted for the legislative reforms that he introduced during his two years (1961–1963) in this role, he also played a vital part in founding two African institutions of higher education: the
Estudos Gerais Universitários de Moçambique and the
Estudos Gerais Universitários de Angola. From the 1974
Carnation Revolution until 1976 Moreira lived in
Brazil. Nevertheless, Moreira's influence over the
CDS – People's Party, the conservative party of which he was president from 1986 to 1988 and which he represented as a deputy in the
Portuguese Parliament between 1980 and 1995, was to be long-lasting. It enabled him to occupy an important place in the development of post-1974 politics. He was Vice-President of the
Assembly of the Republic between 1991 and 1995. Meanwhile, he served as a professor at the
Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas of the
Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (
Technical University of Lisbon). His published works include
A Europa em Formação (Lisbon, 1974),
Ciência Política (Lisbon, 1979), and
Teoria das Relações Internacionais (Coimbra, 1996). Moreira married Isabel Mónica Maia de Lima Mayer (born at Mercês,
Lisbon, on 2 August 1945) on 30 August 1968 at São Martinho,
Sintra. Her paternal grandfather had distant
Ashkenazi Jewish and
Sephardic Jewish ancestry and her paternal grandmother was
Irish. The couple had six children. His daughter,
Isabel Moreira, is a Deputy in the
Assembly of the Republic, representing the
Portuguese Socialist Party (PS). Following his retirement, Moreira was still an influential voice in the country. He was one of the five personalities elected by the Assembly of the Republic to the
Council of State on 18 December 2015, and he took office on 12 January 2016, his term having ended after
the following election, in 2019. Moreira
turned 100 on 6 September 2022, and died on 23 October. He was the longest lived politician in the history of Portuguese democracy. ==Electoral history==