Maria Helena do Rego da Costa Salema Roseta (born 23 December 1947) is a Portuguese

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

, specialising in improvements to poorer neighbourhoods, and a

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

who was a member of the Assembly of the Republic and President of the

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

Municipal Assembly and Mayor of

Cascais Cascais () is a town and municipality in the Lisbon District of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera. The municipality has a total of 214,158 inhabitants in an area of 97.40 km2. Cascais is an important tourism in Portugal, tourist de ...

Early life

Maria Helena do Rego da Costa Salema Roseta was born in

on 23 December 1947. She grew up in a family of 7 siblings. A student with excellent grades, she studied at the Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho secondary school and in 1964/65 was awarded a national prize given to the student with the best grades. After leaving school she went to the School of Fine Arts at the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...

, where she took a degree in architecture. In 1967, after floods that killed 500 people in the Lisbon region, she became involved with other students to support the flooded areas and publicize the facts, despite the censorship efforts of the authoritarian '' Estado Novo'' regime. Her future husband, Pedro Roseta, was another of the students involved. They have three daughters, one of them is Filipa Roseta. After graduating she worked with several architects, including , , and . In 1973 she was elected Secretary-General of the National Union of Architects. In the same year she participated in the 3rd Congress of the Democratic Opposition, in Aveiro, where she spoke about housing problems. She was detained by the

PIDE The International and State Defense Police ( pt, Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado; PIDE) was a Portuguese security agency that existed during the '' Estado Novo'' regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. Formally, the main roles of the ...

, the secret police of the ''Estado Novo'', in the same year.

Early political involvement

After the

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lisbo ...

of April 25, 1974, which overthrew the ''Estado Novo'', Roseta joined Portugal's

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

(PSD). She was elected to the

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

in 1975, and to the Assembly of the Republic in 1976. In the same year she was elected as a councillor for the Lisbon Municipality. In 1978, the PSD formed the Democratic Alliance with other centre-right parties and she was returned to the Assembly in 1979 and 1980 on the Democratic Alliance list. Between 1981 and 1982 she was President of the Parliamentary Commission for European Integration, which prepared Portugal's entry into the European Union, working closely with

Simone Veil Simone Veil (; ; 13 July 1927 – 30 June 2017) was a French magistrate and politician who served as Health Minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. A ...

, the first elected President of the European Parliament. Roseta also ran the official PSD newspaper, ''Povo Livre'' (Free People). Between 1982 and 1985 she was the mayor of the municipality of

and in this role she was also to face floods when Cascais was inundated in 1983, with loss of life. In 1986 she decided to support

Mário Soares Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares, GColTE, GCC, GColL (; 7 December 1924 – 7 January 2017) was a Portuguese politician, who served as prime minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the 17th presid ...

, the candidate of the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS) for President of the Republic. This led to her departure from the PSD and subsequent decision to join the PS.

Other activities

Between 1991 and 1995 Roseta taught the subjects of Urbanism and Citizenship, and Urbanism and Municipalities at the

Universidade Lusófona Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias (Lusophone University of Humanities and Technologies) is the largest Portuguese private university, and the main institution of Grupo Lusófona, which administers other universities and colleges ...

in Lisbon. Between 1995 and 1997 she served as an

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...

expert on Urban Sustainability. In 1993, she took over the management of ''Botequim'', a bar in Graça, Lisbon previously owned by the poet and social activist,

Natália Correia Natália de Oliveira Correia, GOSE, GOL (13 September 1923 – 16 March 1993) was a Portuguese intellectual, poet and social activist, as well as the author of the official lyrics of the "Hino dos Açores", the regional anthem of the Auton ...

, who died in that year. Later, she took responsibility for organizing the poet's intellectual estate. In 1998, she promoted the ''Yes for Tolerance'' movement during the national referendum on decriminalizing abortion. She chaired the National Council of the Order of Architects from 2001 to 2007. She was the founder of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities. Since 2018, she has been a member of the Board of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the

NOVA University Lisbon NOVA University Lisbon ( pt, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, ), or just NOVA, is a Portuguese public university whose rectorate is located in Campolide, Lisbon. Founded in 1973, it is the newest of the public universities in the Portuguese capital ...

and she also works with the same university as a collaborative researcher in the research group on "Cities, Environment and Regional Development".

Later political life

In a break with the PS, she launched the Citizens Movement for Lisbon in 2007. In 2008, the Citizens Movement reached an agreement with the then mayor,

António Costa António Luís Santos da Costa GCIH (; born 17 July 1961) is a Portuguese lawyer and politician serving as the 119th and current prime minister of Portugal since 26 November 2015, presiding over the XXI (2015–2019), XXII (2019–2022) and ...

, to work together. Roseta was responsible for drafting the Local Housing Program in Lisbon. In 2009, the Citizens for Lisbon movement ended up in coalition with the PS. She was elected as a councillor, and was given the portfolio of Housing and Social Development. In 2011, she launched the BIP-ZIP Lisbon Programme, which was designed to boost partnerships and small local interventions to improve Lisbon's neighbourhoods by supporting projects carried out by parish councils, associations, local authorities, communities and non-governmental organizations. The programme was given an award by the International Observatory for Participatory Democracy (OIDP). In 2013, the Citizens for Lisbon movement renewed the coalition agreement with the PS for the municipal elections. Roseta became the President of the Municipal Assembly of Lisbon for the 2013–2017 term. In 2015 she returned to the National Assembly as a representative of the PS. She maintained her position as President of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly in 2017 as a representative of the PS but resigned in October 2019 citing personal reasons and wanting to "change her life". In 2020 she announced that, with the support of António Costa, who had become Prime Minister in 2015, she would be running a programme called "Healthy Neighbourhoods", which consisted of supporting projects for residents of poorer areas. In making the announcement she argued that Portugal lacked a strong public housing policy.

Awards and honours

* Roseta received the Council of Europe Pro-Merito Medal in 1982. * In 2005 she was awarded the Grand Cross of the Portuguese

Order of Liberty The Order of Liberty, or the Order of Freedom ( pt, Ordem da Liberdade), is a Portuguese honorific civil order that distinguishes relevant services to the cause of democracy and freedom, in the defense of the values of civilization and human di ...

. * In 2016 she was made an Honorary Member of the Assembly of the Republic on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, to mark her work as a member of the

. * In 2019 she was made an honorary member of the Order of Architects of Portugal.

References