[3] His civic knowledge, following the Carnation Revolution, was profoundly shaped by his brother Horácio do Vale César (also a journalist), and many of the socialist figures of the period, including Jaime Gama, Mário Mesquita and Medeiros Ferreira (all students of the school Liceu Nacional Antero de Quental).

[3] He began public life in the opposition to the Estado Novo, in the last years of the regime, becoming a member of the Cooperativa Cultural Sextante, which was extinct by the National Assembly, in December 1972.

[3] Once again returning to the Azores, he became a member of the Municipal Assembly of Ponta Delgada, as well as the President of the Civil Parish of Fajã de Baixo.

[3] In 1996, he won the elections for the Regional Legislative Assembly of the Azores, by a narrow margin, winning 46% of the votes cast.

Under Cesar the Political statute of the Azores was changed to limit the number of successive mandate's occupied by the president, resulting in his announcement (in 2008) not to run as his party's candidate for the 2012 elections.

[3] The two other candidates for the position, José Contente and Sérgio Ávila, were possible successors, but easily abandoned by the PS: Contente was a recognized apparatchik of the party and about the same age as César, while Ávila was point-man in the Vice-Presidency (responsible for regional finances) and a Terceirense, which hurt his chances of succeeding on the vote-rich island of São Miguel, where the PSD leader and mayor of Ponta Delgada (Berta Cabral) could easily obtain an advantage.