ABSTRACT
Spring and summer 1975 were an extremely critical period for the Portuguese process of democratic transition. The Argentine transition is somewhat anomalous and deviant in that the decisive confrontation marking the endgame of the transition was exogenous to the process itself. The Spanish transition is unique in terms of the military's secondary role, the low level of violence, the degree of agreement among the transition's protagonists, and a mechanism of transition based on the monarchy. The Portuguese case is particularly relevant to the study of transition in Latin America because, unlike the Spanish case, the military was in control of the entire process and was the effective agent for the breakdown of the Salazarist regime. Elections may and do become "efficacy tools" of transition if the government is able to fulfill this minimal obligation and if it begins to act more consistently and within the limits of its powers.
