responsibility for the defeat and resigned from the party leadership but not from his seat in parliament. He failed to get his preferred successor (Telmo Correia) elected, but some of his staunchest party allies managed to remain in control of the party's Directorate (the "National Congress") setting the stage for Paulo Portas to return in 2007 in what his brief successor José Ribeiro e Castro called "a coup d'etat." Paulo Portas had accused Ribeiro Castro of being an ineffective absentee leader (for keeping his post at the European Parliament) and called for party elections open to all CDS-PP supporters gambling that he would capture the support of the less involved party members. Ribeiro e Castro questioned the legality of Portas' challenge but, in April 2007, he was soundly defeated by Portas who got 70% of the militants' votes and would remain as CDS-PP president until 2016. For the next six years, Paulo Portas led his party in the opposition to the ruling Socialist Party (PS). His new strategy for the party was to focus on a few major issues (such as agriculture, tax cuts, fuel prices) in order for CDS-PP to retain conservative voters, who, in the past, supported CDS-PP but voted PSD at election time. In 2009 he personally ran for local office in the small municipality of Arouca (population: 20,000) and was elected to the Municipal Assembly significantly boosting CDS-PP's votes in the region. In 2006–07, just prior to regaining the party leadership, Paulo Portas again had been a leading 'No!' voice against the legalization of abortion in Portugal in the 2007 referendum that was won by the "Yes!" vote that reversed the "No!" outcome of the 1998 referendum. Minister of State and Foreign Affairs, 2011–13 In the 2011 elections, Portas's opposition strategies paid off and the CDS-PP achieved its best result in 30 years: 11.7% of the total vote. The winning party, the PSD, needed the CDS-PP to reach a parliamentary majority and the two parties formed a coalition government. By his own choice, Portas became Minister of State and of Foreign Affairs and secured two more minister slots for the CDS-PP, including the Minister of Agriculture position for his youthful female protégée Assunção Cristas, who would five years later succeed Portas in the CDS-PP party's leadership. As minister, Portas chose (and relished) devoting himself fully to performing his official functions, in particular traveling abroad. He made