Portuguese EU parliament candidate dies of heart attack

[Kellanved]

The head of Portugal's Socialist Party list for this weekend's European Parliament elections, Antonio Sousa Franco, died Wednesday from a heart attack shortly after making a campaign stop, officials said.

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Sousa Franco, a former finance minister, was taken to hospital an hour after he cut short an appearance at a fish market in Matosinhos, some 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of Lisbon, after fights broke out among rival local factions of his party, witnesses and party officials said.

He died three minutes after arriving at a hospital in Matosinhos, a suburb of Oporto, Portugal's second largest city, despite numerous attempts to revive him, the director of the hospital said.

Sousa Franco, 61, was finance minister from 1979 to 1980 under Prime Minister Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, Portugal's first woman prime minister, and again from 1995 to 1999 under Prime Minister Antonio Guterres.

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http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/040609124021.fqtkszeo