Denmark, September 27: Portugal votes today in an election the ruling Socialists are expected to win despite discontent with the economy in Western Europe’s poorest country.
Prime Minister Jose Socrates, an energetic 52-year-old, is not likely to get an absolute majority and will have to form a minority government. This means a spell of political uncertainty but it will not be calamitous, analysts said today.
“If the Socialists get 38 percent of the vote as the polls indicate, it is not the worst of situations for their survival, it has been done in the past,” analyst Antonio Costa Pinto said.
The centre-right Social Democrats (PSD), led by former finance minister Manuela Ferreira Leite, 68, have fared poorly against the youthful Socrates, partly due to her conservative image, analysts said.
But the two parties may have to cooperate, particularly on public finance and the looming 2010 budget. Spending cuts or tax hikes are needed to start bailing out from this year’s budget deficit of 5.9 percent of GDP – substantially above European guidelines.
On other matters, like social reform, the Socialists may turn to leftist parties. Socrates, like the left, sees a bigger government role in the economy, with projects to create jobs.
But the left staunchly opposes Socrates’s market-friendly economic policies, including privatisation.
Mr Socrates won 45 percent of the 2005 vote, giving him a solid absolute majority and allowing him to clean up public finances and to reform pensions and the civil service.
Economic Woes
But debt levels are once again soaring and unemployment is the highest since the 1980s, which is particularly painful for a country with GDP per capita of €15,600 ($22,910), about half the euro zone average of €28,300.
In a televised address on Saturday night, President Anibal Cavaco Silva said the ballot comes “at a time of great difficulty, which calls for great responsibility” on the part of the electorate.
The economic downturn has hit hard, but many Portuguese seem to want to stick with a government they know rather than change.
“This vote is more or less about choosing the lesser of the evils,” political analyst Pedro Magalhaes said.
“In the Socialists’ case, an important part of their old electorate is far less enthusiastic, far less positive about their government. Meanwhile, the PSD opposition party has not presented a convincing alternative and is divided,” he said.
Antonio Moura, a 52-year-old accountant in Lisbon, said he is “shocked by how living standards have fallen”.
“But if it’s not Socrates, then what? At least he had a stable government. I don’t want instability to make things worse for us.”
—Agencies