Aníbal Cavaco Silva (Napoleon's World)

Aníbal António Cavaco Silva (born 15 July 1939) is a Portuguese politician currently serving as Ambassador to the United States and who served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1988 to 1996 as leader of the Liberal Democrats. From 1988 to 1992, he governed over Portugal's first single-party minority government, as the PLD had a pluarility of seats. After losses in 1992, Cavaco Silva formed a coalition with the right-wing Popular Front and governed for an additional four years until his coalition's defeat by a coalition of the Socialist Party and the Green Party in 1996. In 1998, Cavaco Silva resigned party leadership and was succeeded by Melina Azenha Belo.

As Prime Minister, Cavaco Silva oversaw a period of stagnant and sluggish economic growth in the late 1980s and early 1990s and a moderate recovery in the mid-1990s, but was unable to break free of nearly two decades of economic malaise in Portugal. He is best known for becoming the first Portuguese Prime Minister since 1961 to visit Spain on a formal state visit, when he visiting Spanish Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez in Madrid in 1988 a few weeks after his election. He also became the first Portuguese Prime Miniter to host a Spanish visit since 1958 when Suárez visited Lisbon the following year.