The First Republic was ended by a military coup in May 1926, but the newly installed government failed to fix the nation's precarious financial situation. Instead, President Óscar Fragoso Carmona invited António de Oliveira Salazar to head the Ministry of Finance, and the latter agreed to accept the position provided he would have veto power over all fiscal expenditures. At the time of his appointment in 1928, Salazar held the Chair of Economics at the Law School of the University of Coimbra and was considered by his peers to be Portugal's most distinguished authority on inflation. For forty years, first as minister of finance (1928–32) and then as prime minister (1932–68), Salazar's political and economic doctrines shaped the progress of the country.