Farewell the “geringonca” (“the thingy”), this improbable union of the lefts which had brought Antonio Costa to power in 2015 and which was the particularity of Portugal: with 117 seats out of 230 (the results are still partial), Antonio Costa won the legislative elections, Sunday January 30 in Portugal. He gets rid of the radical left and the Communists, necessary but turbulent allies, and he now has free rein to lead the country. Only. Exactly as he wanted.
#Portugal #Latest Socialist leader and re-elected PM@antoniocostapmrecognizes overall majority in snap elections during victory speech: “an absolute majority doesn’t mean an absolute power”. #elections pic.twitter.com/XRkzgsDrWe
— Jose Miguel Sardo (@jmsardo) January 31, 2022
Corn “an absolute majorityhe said, it’s not absolute power… It’s above all an additional responsibility“. The former mayor of Lisbon, with neat white hair and a plump face, will be able to implement as he wishes the European Union’s 16.6 billion euro investment plan intended to relaunch the country. During his first term, Antonio Costa benefited from favorable economic conditions, which enabled him to put an end to the austerity measures put in place after the debt crisis in 2011 and to clean up public finances. , this supporter of the Benfica football club has built his career with the same patience he shows when dealing with puzzles, his hobby. After these last two years, very marked by the health crisis and from which Portugal hopes to emerge as soon as possible. Quickly, Antonio Costa promised to raise the minimum wage, which today has a ceiling of 822 euros over twelve months, one of the lowest in the whole of the European Union.
It is the third time that the Portuguese have been called to the polls since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, after the presidential election a year ago and the municipal elections last September. In all, there were 10.8 million voters, including 9.3 million living on Portuguese soil.
The other lesson of this election, whose campaign took place mainly on television and on social networks (the authorities had organized a first advance vote on Sunday January 23), is the rise of the far right, which becomes the third political force of the country. A real earthquake in a country which in this regard was an exception in Europe. Because since 1974 and the end of the Salazar dictatorship, Portugal has always blocked the far right.
The Chega Party (in Portuguese “enough”, “that’s enough “) obtains more than 7% of the votes, i.e. 12 deputies on the seats of the assembly against only one during the last elections, in 2019 (1.3% of the votes), the year of its creation.
#Portugal #Latest Socialist leader and re-elected PM@antoniocostapmrecognizes overall majority in snap elections during victory speech: “an absolute majority doesn’t mean an absolute power”. #elections pic.twitter.com/XRkzgsDrWe
— Jose Miguel Sardo (@jmsardo) January 31, 2022
The president of Chega, the very populist and very Catholic Andre Ventura, a former football commentator who campaigned for a time in the center right, defends life imprisonment and the chemical castration of sex offenders. His favorite targets: Gypsies and Blacks. He claims to do “housework” all-out with an anti-elite and anti-corruption discourse, around a slogan that takes up that of Salazar: “God, fatherland, family”, to which he simply added the word “job”.
His party has links with Marine Le Pen in France, Matteo Salvini in Italy and Vox in Spain.
In the January 2021 presidential election, Ventura came third, ahead of the Communist and Left Bloc candidates. Legislative confirms its breakthrough. He who had the mission to break the taboo of the extreme right in Portugal has succeeded. And now intends to influence the political debate.