Today’s early parliamentary elections in Portugal are marked by concern and uncertainty. Before the vote, almost all polls predicted a defeat for the still ruling Socialist Party (PS), a strong shift to the right with significant vote gains for the populists from Chega (It’s enough) and a very difficult government formation.
President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa called new elections in November after Prime Minister António Costa resigned in the wake of a corruption scandal and remained in office only in an acting capacity.
If the polling institutes are right, the conservative Democratic Alliance (AD) alliance led by leading candidate Luis Montenegro will prevail with 30 to 35 percent of the vote, just ahead of the PS led by Pedro Nuno Santos. However, the two main competitors will miss by a long shot the absolute majority that the Socialists, who have been in power for a good eight years, won at the beginning of 2022.
Also in Portugal there is a firewall to the right
In order to be appointed by Rebelo de Sousa as the new head of government, both Montenegro and Santos would have to rely on agreements with smaller parties. But according to the surveys, even these are unlikely to be enough. The reason? According to the surveys, Chega, led by former TV sports commentator André Ventura, could improve from a good seven to 15 to 20 percent.
And since there is still a so-called firewall to the right in Portugal – just as in Germany against the AfD – there would probably not be a sufficiently strong coalition in sight in this case. Against this background, quite a few observers are already predicting a new election in the summer.
How could the socialists, celebrated at home and abroad for the “Portuguese miracle”, let things come to this so quickly? After the difficult years of the euro crisis, Costa Portugal had run very solidly for years. Spending discipline but also social responsibility characterized his work. Over the years, the economy has almost always grown above the EU average, and unemployment has been steadily reduced.
Several corruption scandals
However, several corruption scandals, including at the state airline TAP, ruined everything. The sad climax came in November when Costa stumbled upon suspicions of corruption in lithium and hydrogen projects.
According to the latest investigation, the 62-year-old was not personally guilty of anything. When the 230 representatives of the “Assembleia da República” are elected, many of the 10.8 million voters at home and abroad will also have many other problems on their minds – including the dire housing shortage and inflation, which hit the low-wage country particularly hard and there According to observers, they provide breeding ground for the shift to the right.
Since the end of the pandemic, Portugal has been overwhelmed by an increasing wave of strikes, with doctors, teachers, police officers and many others protesting ever louder.
