Manuel Alegre de Melo Duarte, GCL (born 12 May 1936) is a Portuguese poet and politician, member of the Socialist Party, and a candidate for the 2006 Portuguese presidential election. He ran again in the 2011 presidential election, this time backed by the Left Bloc and the Socialist Party. Alegre was awarded the Camões Prize in 2017. Background He is the son of Francisco José de Faria e Melo Ferreira Duarte, brother of sportsman Mário Duarte, son of the 1st Baroness of a Recosta, maternal grandson of the 1st Baron of Cadoro and matrilineal great-grandson of the 1st Viscount of o Barreiro, and wife Maria Manuela Alegre. His sister Maria Teresa Alegre de Melo Duarte is also a Deputy and is the widow of another Deputy, António Jorge Moreira Portugal (1931–1994). Their son is journalist Manuel Alegre Portugal. As he once stated, his ancestors were hanged and beheaded at the Praça Nova, Porto, during the Liberal Wars. Career He was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party from his youth until the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, which he staunchly opposed, in 1968. Today he's usually considered one of the most leftist members of the Portuguese Socialist Party. He voted against all the revisions of the Portuguese Constitution of 1976, and abstained at a commemorative vote for the 10th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall, in 1999. While studying law at the University of Coimbra, Alegre was noticed for his opposition to António de Oliveira Salazar's dictatorial government - the Estado Novo regime. He was conscripted, and sent to the Azores and later to Portuguese Angola, where his involvement in an attempt to military rebellion led to his imprisonment. After serving his prison term in Luanda, he returned to Coimbra, before going into exile in 1964. As a student at the University of Coimbra he was a very active figure of the Associação Académica de Coimbra, the university's student's union, while member of the governing body, athlete and cultural agent (poetry and theatre). He would never graduate in law. He would live the next ten years in Algiers, where he was one of the main voices of a radio station directed to Portugal, Rádio Voz da Liberdade (Freedom's Voice), also called Rádio Argel, from where he reportedly led a series of activities supporting African forces opposing the Portuguese military intervention in the Portuguese Colonial War, including by airing privileged information