(Lisbon) Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa easily won Sunday’s legislative elections in Portugal, obtaining an improbable absolute majority after an election also marked by a breakthrough of the far right.
Updated yesterday at 8:31 p.m.
Given in the latest polls neck and neck with the centre-right opposition, Mr Costa has ended up improving his 2019 score and will no longer depend on his former allies on the radical left, who had provoked these snap elections in rejecting the draft budget for 2022.
The 60-year-old former mayor of Lisbon came to power in 2015 by sealing a union of the left unprecedented since the Carnation Revolution of 1974, when he had not even won these elections. On Sunday, he offered the Socialist Party the second absolute majority in its history.
According to partial results covering all constituencies except those abroad, which elect four deputies, the Socialist Party (PS) came out on top with 41.7% of the vote and at least 117 seats out of a total of 230.
“An absolute majority is not absolute power, […] it’s an increased responsibility,” Mr. Costa told his supporters. “It’s a victory for humility, confidence and for stability,” he added.
Breakthrough of the far right
“The PS must win, because it needs stability, now is not the time for political change,” testified Catia Reis, a 39-year-old human resources specialist, after voting in Lisbon.
“I voted for the Socialists because we need them at this difficult time,” said Manuel Pinto, a 68-year-old former carpenter.
While he hoped to be able to create a surprise, the main opposition party, the Social Democratic Party (PSD, right) of Rui Rio, came in second place with 29.3% of the vote.
The far-right party Chega (Enough) is for its part propelled to the rank of third force in the country, with 7.15% of the votes and 12 elected, while it had only one deputy in the outgoing Parliament.
Portugal has long been an exception in Europe, because since the end of the dictatorship in 1974 and until the last election in 2019, this country of 10 million inhabitants had no representative of the far right in Parliament.
“People have understood our message”, rejoiced the president of Chega, André Ventura, who judged “bad for the country that Antonio Costa continues to be prime minister”.
The Liberals, who entered Parliament in 2019 with only one MP, also confirm the strong progress predicted by the polls, with nearly 5% of the vote and eight elected.
Investment plan
They are ahead of the two formations of the radical left, the Left Bloc and the Communist-Green coalition, severely sanctioned after having provoked this election by rejecting the draft budget for 2022.
During the election campaign, Antonio Costa never ceased to pride himself on having “turned the page on budgetary austerity” implemented by the right until 2015, under the surveillance of the “Troika” (ECB-IMF -EU), in the midst of a debt crisis.
But, while his minority government now intended to “turn the page on the pandemic” thanks to record vaccination coverage and the post-COVID-19 European recovery plan, he was stopped in his tracks by his former allies, who demanded more social concessions.
Now having free rein, Mr. Costa will be able to implement the 16 billion euro investment plan financed by the European Union.
During his first mandate, concluded before the health crisis, his government took advantage of a favorable economic situation to remove the salary cuts of the time of the “Troika”, while posting the first budget surplus in the recent history of Portugal. .