''Os Grandes Portugueses'' ( en, The Greatest Portuguese) was a public poll contest organized by the Portuguese public broadcasting station RTP and hosted by

Maria Elisa Maria Elisa Domingues, known as Maria Elisa (born June 4, 1950) is a Portuguese journalist and television presenter. Early years Maria Elisa was born in Lisbon, Portugal. After attending the Medical School of the University of Lisbon for two y ...

. Based on

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

100 Greatest Britons ''100 Greatest Britons'' is a television series that was broadcast by the BBC in 2002. It was based on a television poll conducted to determine who the British people at that time considered the greatest Britons in history. The series included in ...

, it featured individual documentaries advocating the top ten candidates. The final vote took place on 25 March 2007, the winner being

António de Oliveira Salazar António de Oliveira Salazar (, , ; 28 April 1889 – 27 July 1970) was a Portuguese dictator who served as President of the Council of Ministers from 1932 to 1968. Having come to power under the ("National Dictatorship"), he reframed the re ...

, Portugal's

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

from 1932 to 1968.

Format

The series started in October 2006, with each episode featuring small groups of candidates considered amongst the Greatest Portuguese. Based on voting results, the list of 10 most voted-for personalities were revealed on 14 January 2007, in alphabetical order. All of the 10 finalists were deceased. The ten finalists were then featured in individual documentary episodes, followed by a second round of voting within these top ten. On 25 March the voting results for the final 10, and the full list of 100, was announced.

Summary of results

There are 19 women in the final list of the top 100 Greatest Portuguese, with singer and actress

Amália Rodrigues Amália da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues GCSE, GCIH (23 July 1920 – 6 October 1999), better known as Amália Rodrigues () or popularly as Amália, was a Portuguese '' fadista'' (fado singer) and actress. Known as the 'Rainha do Fado' ("Queen ...

rating the highest, at number 14. The list included 33 then-living persons, with former president and prime minister

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 ...

rating the highest, at number 12. A total of 66 on the list (including the 33 then-living) are predominantly 20th century figures. Of the 100 candidates presented in the opening programs, the only (likely) fictional person was Brites de Almeida, a baker who legend says killed six Castilian soldiers during the 1335

Battle of Aljubarrota The Battle of Aljubarrota (; see Aljubarrota) was fought between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile on 14 August 1385. Forces commanded by King John I of Portugal and his general Nuno Álvares Pereira, with the support of English ...

, a battle in which Portuguese independence was confirmed; she appeared at number 51 when the final list was released.

The Top-10

Prime Minister

, whose episode was presented by

Jaime Nogueira Pinto Jaime Alexandre Nogueira Pinto (born 4 February 1946 in Porto, Santo Ildefonso) is a Portuguese writer and university professor, son of Jaime da Cunha Guimarães by Alda Branca Nogueira Pinto, who died in 2007. A right-wing political thinker, he h ...

, polled the most (41%); his lifelong communist political opponent

Álvaro Cunhal Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal (; 10 November 1913 – 13 June 2005) was a Portuguese communist revolutionary and politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of the '' Estado Novo''. He served as secretary-general of the P ...

was second (19%), and the diplomat

Aristides de Sousa Mendes Aristides de Sousa Mendes do Amaral e Abranches () GCC, OL (July 19, 1885 – April 3, 1954) was a Portuguese consul during World War II. As the Portuguese consul-general in the French city of Bordeaux, he defied the orders of Antóni ...

third (13%). A simultaneous opinion poll conducted by Marktest showed that, given the choice of the finalists, Salazar was the favourite of only 11%. RTP itself commissioned a simultaneous poll, conducted by Eurosondagem, which ranked Salazar 7th, with 6.6% of the vote, and

Afonso I Afonso I of PortugalOr also ''Affonso'' (Archaic Portuguese-Galician) or ''Alphonso'' (Portuguese-Galician) or ''Alphonsus'' (Latin version), sometimes rendered in English as ''Alphonzo'' or ''Alphonse'', depending on the Spanish or French inf ...

1st with 21%. The difference of these statistically conducted polls to the final result of the Os Grandes Portugueses program suggest that the voting for the program, consisting of voluntary telephone calls, may have been skewed by repeat voters in general or organized groups of repeat voters with vested interests.

The other 90

Os Piores Portugueses

The

SIC Notícias SIC Notícias () is the cable news channel of the Portuguese television network SIC (''Sociedade Independente de Comunicação'') and the second thematic channel of the station. It is available on basic cable and satellite. It replaced CNL (''Cana ...

programme ''Eixo do Mal'' (Axis of Evil) held a parallel vote for Os Piores Portugueses (The Worst Portuguese), also won by

Other editions

Other countries have produced similar shows; see

Greatest Britons spin-offs The following is a list of spin-offs of the 2002 ''100 Greatest Britons'' program produced by the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grandes Portuguese, Os Greatest Nationals Rádio e Televisão de Portugal original programming Lists of Portuguese people 2006 Portuguese television series debuts 2007 Portuguese television series endings Portuguese television series based on British television series