Aníbal António Cavaco Silva is the 19th President of the Republic of Portugal, and has held this office since 2006.

The position of 'President of the Republic' also hold the position of the 'Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces'.

His permanent residence is Belém Palace in Lisbon.

He first won the Portuguese presidential election on 22 January 2006 and was re-elected on 23 January 2011, for a second five-year term.

He was previously Prime Minister of Portugal from 1985 to 1995.

He was born in Boliqueime, Loulé, Algarve, on 15 July 1939, and he married Maria Alves da Silva at the Church of the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora, São Vicente de Fora, Lisbon, on 20 October 1964.

Aníbal António Cavaco Silva was an undistinguished student at school. As a 13-year-old, he failed the 3rd grade of the Private School he attended, and his grandfather put him to work on the farm as a punishment. After returning to school, Cavaco went on to become an excellent student. He went to the ISCEF at the Technical University of Lisbon (UTL) and obtained a degree in economics and finance in 1963, with distinction.

While studying in Lisbon, Cavaco Silva was an athlete of CDUL athletics department from 1958 to 1963. In 1964 he married Maria Alves da Silva, a lecturer in Germanic philology at the University of Lisbon, with whom he has two children (Bruno and Patrícia Maria) and 5 grandchildren. He did his compulsory military service in the then Portuguese Overseas Province of Mozambique, as an official of military administration in Lourenço Marques (now the city of Maputo).

Cavaco Silva's teaching career began in 1966 as assistant at the ISCEF, but two years later he went to the University of York, in the United Kingdom, where, in 1973, he was awarded a doctorate in economics. Returning to Portugal, he took up a post as assistant professor in ISCEF (1974), professor at the Catholic University of Portugal (1975), extraordinary professor at the New University of Lisbon (1979) and finally director of the Office of Studies of the Bank of Portugal. Professor Cavaco Silva is an establish technical author and has published more than 10 books in his field of Economics.

He only became active in politics after the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, later that year joining the then PPD, a political party headed by Francisco Sá Carneiro. Cavaco Silva, was appointed Minister of Finance by Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro in 1980. He gained a reputation as an economic liberal, gradually dismantling regulations inhibiting free enterprise. He refused to serve in the Center Bloc coalition of Socialists(PS) and Social Democrats (PSD) that governed from 1983 to 1985, and his election to the leadership of the PSD in 1985, meant the end of the coalition.

His tenure as Prime Minister lasted ten years, from 1985 to 1995. It is the longest of any Prime Minister since Salazar, and he was the first Portuguese Prime Minister to have won an absolute parliamentary majority under the current constitutional system. As Prime Minister he was proactive in the process of European construction, influencing the options written into the Maastricht Treaties and guaranteeing the accession of the escudo to the European Monetary System (The Euro). He helped to create the conditions for the inclusion of Portugal in the first group of countries which adopted the single European currency.

For more information about the President and the Presidency go to the Official website of the President of the Portuguese Republic (English).