António Duarte Arnaut, GOL (28 January 1936 – 21 May 2018) was a Portuguese poet, fiction writer, essayist, lawyer, and politician. He was Minister of Social Affairs in the II Constitutional Government of Portugal, led by

Mário Soares Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares (; 7 December 1924 – 7 January 2017) was a Portugal, Portuguese politician, who served as prime minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the List of Presidents of P ...

. He is considered the "father" of the Portuguese national health service (SNS - ''Serviço Nacional de Saúde''), having created the first basic health law in Portugal and contributed to universal access to medical care for all Portuguese.

Life before politics

António Arnaut was born in

Cumeeira Cumeeira is a parish in Penela Municipality, Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal b ...

, a small town located in

Penela Municipality Penela () is a Municipalities of Portugal, municipality located in Coimbra District, in Portugal. It contains the town of Penela with about 3,300 inhabitants. The town's main tourist attraction is the Penela Castle. The population of the municipal ...

. He graduated in law from

University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; , ) is a Public university, public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537. The university ...

in 1959.

Political career

In 1973, together with personalities like

or Salgado Zenha, he founded the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

, in Bad Münstereifel,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. He was a member of the party board until 1983. In 1975 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly, which had the task of drafting the new

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

after the

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution (), code-named Operation Historic Turn (), also known as the 25 April (), was a military coup by military officers that overthrew the Estado Novo government on 25 April 1974 in Portugal. The coup produced major socia ...

. He was also elected to the Assembly of the Republic for several times. In 1978 he was sworn in as Minister of Social Affairs, and despite being in office for only seven months, he founded the Portuguese National Health Service, which created the first universal health system in Portugal. Although being retired from active politics, António Arnaut was still an influential voice in the country.

Other activities

He was President of the Portuguese Bar Association council in

Coimbra District Coimbra District (, or ) is located in the Centro Region, Portugal. The district capital is the city of Coimbra. Municipalities The district is composed by 17 municipalities: * Arganil * Cantanhede * Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), of ...

. He was a

freemason Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

, and was Grand Master of Grande Oriente Lusitano between 2002 and 2005.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arnaut, Antonio 1936 births 2018 deaths Government ministers of Portugal Members of the 1st Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) Members of the 2nd Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) Members of the Constituent Assembly (Portugal) People from Penela Portuguese Freemasons Portuguese male writers Socialist Party (Portugal) politicians University of Coimbra alumni