Maria José Nogueira Pinto

Maria José Nogueira Pinto died on 6 July 2011, a victim of pancreatic cancer. She had three children, one boy and two girls.

In March 2007 Pinto entered into conflict with the CDS-PP when Paulo Portas returned to the leadership of the Party. She accused Portas of going against democratically elected bodies of the party. She also accused a CDS-PP deputy of physically assaulting her. In 2009, she was asked to join the list of the liberal-conservative Social Democratic Party (PSD) for the Assembly of the Republic. She was duly elected for the Lisbon constituency and was re-elected in 2011, shortly before her death.

Pinto's political career began in 1992, when he was appointed Undersecretary of State for Culture in the 12th constitutional government, headed by Aníbal Cavaco Silva. However, she resigned a year later. In 1995 she was elected to the Assembly of the Republic as an independent deputy on the list of the CDS – People's Party (CDS-PP), representing Lisbon. In 1996 she formally joined the party. In 1998, after poor election results, the leader of the CDS-PP Manuel Monteiro resigned and Paulo Portas beat Pinto in the ensuing leadership contest. Portas later appointed her as president of the Parliamentary Group of the CDS-PP. However, she did not stand for re-election to the Assembly in 1999. She was elected president of the party's National Council and, in 2005, also became the CDS-PP candidate to be leader to the Lisbon City Council. She did not win but became the councillor with responsibility for social housing, playing an important role in promoting the revitalization of parts of Lisbon.

Maria José Pinto da Cunha de Avilez Nogueira Pinto was born into an aristocratic family in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon on 23 March 1952. She married Jaime Nogueira Pinto in January 1972. They were both students at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon but, after the overthrow of the Estado Novo regime in April 1974, she interrupted her studies to accompany her husband to the Portuguese colony of Angola, as he had volunteered to do military service there. As a consequence of the outbreak of the civil war in Angola, and before Portugal could withdraw all of its troops, the couple made their way to South Africa, where they were accommodated in a Red Cross refugee camp. They later travelled to Spain and from there to Brazil. When she finally returned to Lisbon, she completed her degree at the University of Coimbra.