FRELIMO took control of the territory after ten years of sporadic warfare, as well as Portugal's own return to democracy after the fall of the authoritarian Estado Novo regime in the Carnation Revolution of April 1974 and the failed coup of 25 November 1975. Within a year, most of the 250,000 Portuguese in Mozambique had left—some expelled by the government of the nearly independent territory, some left the country to avoid possible reprisals from the unstable government—and Mozambique became independent from Portugal at midnight, local time, on 25 June 1975. A law had been passed on the initiative of the relatively unknown Armando Guebuza of the FRELIMO party, ordering the Portuguese to leave the country in 24 hours with only  of luggage. Unable to salvage any of their assets, most of them returned to Portugal penniless.