Aristides Pereira
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Aristides Maria Pereira (1924 - present) was the president of Cape Verde from 1975 to 1991.
Pereira's first major government job was chief of telecommunications in Guinea-Bissau. From the late 1940s until Cape Verde's independence, Pereira was heavily involved in the anti-colonial movement, organizing strikes and rising through the hierarchy of his party, the Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, known as PAIGC).
Although Pereira initially promised to lead a democratic and socialist nation upon becoming president, he compounded the country's chronic poverty by crushing dissent following the overthrow of Luís de Almeida Cabral. Cabral was the president of Guinea-Bissau and Pereira's ally in the drive to unite the two Lusophone states. However, Cape Verde had a much better human rights record than most countries in Africa and was known as one of the most democratic (despite the restriction on party activity) because of the power delegated to local citizens' committees. After the coup in Bissau, political repression sharply decreased but the one-party PAICV state established at independence remained until 1990.
The country's policies during Pereira's rule tended toward Cold War nonalignment and economic reforms to help the peasantry. He controversially allied his country with the regimes in China and Libya.
Current Cape Verdean president Pedro Pires served as prime minister for the duration of Pereira's presidency.
Pereira lost democratic elections in 1991 to António Mascarenhas Monteiro.
See also
| Preceded by: (none) | President of Cape Verde 1975–1991 | Succeeded by: António Mascarenhas Monteiro |