LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Diogo Freitas do Amaral, a conservative politician who played a leading role in cementing democracy after Portugal’s 1974 Carnation Revolution and later became president of the U.N. General Assembly, has died. He was 78.

The government announced his death Thursday.

Freitas do Amaral was a co-founder and first leader of the Christian Democratic Party, formed barely three months after the army coup which introduced democracy.

In governments elected from 1976 onward, he was deputy prime minister, foreign minister and defense minister, and narrowly lost the 1986 presidential election.

Earlier this year, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa described Freitas do Amaral as "one of the fathers of Portuguese democracy."

He served as U.N. General Assembly president between 1995 and 1996.