From the beginning of independence there was practically no civil society, politicized
― Pereira in September,1990
Aristides Maria Pereira (November 17, 1923 - September 22, 2011) was a politician from Cape Verde, he was the first president of the republic of his country from 1975 to 1991. He began his professional life working as a radiographer, where he became Chief of Telecommunications Services, in Guinea-Bissau. Starting in the 1940s, Aristides Pereira became involved in the fight for the independence of Cape Verde. Together with Amílcar Cabral, he founded the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) in 1956, assuming the post of general secretary in 1973. After Cabral's death, the conspirators led by Inocêncio Kani and Mamadou Mahdaoui captured Aristides Pereira, captured and subjected to severe beatings. They tried to get him out of Conakry by boat. However, the conspiracy was quickly put down, Pereira was liberated by the Guinean army (according to other sources, by Soviet naval sailors at the request of the President of Guinea Sekou Touré).
With the conquest of independence in 1975, Arístides Pereira would become the first president of the Republic of Cape Verde, a position he held until 1991. In 1991, and after the democratic elections, Aristides Pereira lost the presidency to António Mascarenhas Monteiro. Although initially promised to start a democratic regime, repression against opponents increased in the late 1970s and the country continued to be a socialist state for the next decade until the fall of communism between 1989 and 1991. However, the history of the Human rights in Cape Verde was relatively better than in other Socialist Bloc countries and citizen participation in government was higher thanks to local committees. Cape Verde is one of the few countries in the world that has never had the death penalty as a sentence in its penal code since independence, although several opposition political parties had to be founded in exile on the grounds that communism required their nations to be one-party, a doctrine of which Aristides was a follower, such as the Independent and Democratic Union of Cape Verde . (in 1975), which was excluded from the independence negotiations and had to be founded in Portugal in 1981.
From 1975, Cape Verde's forest area increased from 3,000 to 45,000 hectares: the government predicted 75,000 more in ten years , which would self-supply the population with firewood. In the rainy season, men and women left their homes and offices to plant trees for a week. The agrarian reform was implemented, prioritizing the production of food for the population's consumption (only 5% was produced), instead of favoring the export of crops characteristic of the colonial period. Despite these actions, agricultural production fell due to severe droughts and the government began to promote fishing, as part of its First Development Plan. In 1984, the drought reduced yields by 25% compared to five years ago, the trade deficit was $ 70 million and the external debt was $ 98 million. The food distribution system and efficient state management prevented the country from falling into hunger. In 1986, the Second Plan gave priority to the private sector of the economy (especially the informal one) and desertification was fought. The objective was to recover (until 1990) more than five thousand hectares of land and put into operation a single system of administration and distribution of the country's water reserves. In the first stage, more than 15,000 dams were built to contain rainwater and 23,101 hectares of forested areas. Despite the drought, agricultural productivity increased, which provided almost the entire population with Meat and Vegetables, without resorting to imports. One difference between Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde was the political tranquility of Cape Verde, which would later move to multiparty politics in an extremely peaceful manner, and the constant authoritarianism and strong instability in Guinea-Bissau under Joao Bernardo Vieira. He died in Coimbra, Portugal, on September 22, 2011, at the age of 87. He had been in Portugal since the beginning of August, having undergone surgery in Coimbra after a fracture in the femoral neck, aggravated by his diabetic condition. Carlos Veiga, leader of the largest opposition party, the MPD considered that the first president of Cape Verde was a personality who earned respect and sympathy in various parts of the world. He was buried in hometown Boavista.