The history of the euro crisis is full of rising radicals and disgraced moderates. Not so much in Portugal. The country is heading for parliamentary elections on 4 October with no clear threat to the position of the mainstream parties in sight.
It was not always evident that the opposition Socialists and the incumbent rightwing coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats would walk away from the crisis unscathed. The former were widely blamed for the bailout request in 2011 and the latter for rolling out austerity policies with fervour. As elsewhere in Europe, social unrest grew as the recession took hold, and in the local and European parliamentary elections independent candidates drained electoral support away from them. However, as the economy picks up and the more significant parliamentary elections loom the electorate is moving back towards the mainstream parties.
PopStar’s poll of polls puts the Socialists in the lead with 37.2 per cent of the vote, two points ahead of the two parties on the right, which are fielding a joint list of candidates. The diehard communists come in third with about 10 per cent, the same they had before the crisis. The Portuguese Syriza, the Left Bloc, risks obliteration – the price of a bloody leadership contest. Two new parties are trending below three per cent and should not secure a single seat.
The army of undecideds, as much as 35 per cent, according to one poll, has been keeping pollsters busy. Some argue that the positive standing of the Socialist leader, Antonio Costa, until recently mayor of Lisbon, should prop up support for the centre-left in the end. Others note that the coalition is catching up as the government of Pedro Passos Coelho unwinds austerity.
The narrowing Socialist lead is embarrassing for Costa, who ousted his predecessor in a bloody primary election a year ago, after the party’s ‘small victory’ in the European parliamentary election. There are other thorny issues. The coalition is using Syriza’s fiasco in Greece to discredit Socialist proposals to restore salaries in the public sector and introduce in-work benefits. The former Socialist prime minister faces corruption charges. The future government must plug a €600m hole in the pension system, but no party has explained in any detail how it intends to achieve that.
Neither the Socialists nor the right are likely to secure an absolute majority anyway. What happens next is very unclear. The president has ruled out appointing a technocratic government and urged the parties to strike an agreement in parliament. But the Socialists and the incumbents seem irreconcilable. Adding to the uncertainty, in January the country will elect a new president, who could be tempted to dismiss the government and call a snap election. On the right, there is no candidate, yet; on the left there are too many and the Socialists are already split. This could prove to be a costly mistake. Four years after the bailout, Costa might be close to taking the Socialists back into power. But, in the absence of a parliamentary majority, he will need all the support he can get from the presidency to retain it.
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Hugo Coelho is a journalist and political researcher
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