New minority government brings political tension in Portugal after election

(MENAFN – Arab News)LISBON Portugal: Senior Portuguese officials are starting the delicate task of installing a stable government after a general election that complicated as much as it clarified the country’s future.

Only one minority government in Portugal has ever completed its four-year term. Their average life span is 14 months. The center-right coalition government earned another four-year term Sunday, winning a general election behind an improving economy that weathered the austerity measures contested across Europe, but falling short of a crucial outright majority in Parliament.

The poster belongs to the new leftist party Livre, or Free, which failed to win any seats in parliament. That means its planned financial austerity measures, including more pension cuts, and economic reforms risk being blocked. Another paper, Publico, said the ballot “left the country in an impasse”. The remaining seats were allocated among the Democratic Unity Coalition with 16 and the Left Bloc with eight mandates. The Communist Party, which captured 17 seats, wants Portugal out of the eurozone.

The secretary-general of Portugal’s Socialist Party (PS), António Costa, will at a meeting of the party’s national political committee on Tuesday call for a congress to decide on the leadership and what strategy the party should follow after its loss of Sunday’s general election, a PS spokesman told Lusa on Monday. Party head Antonio Costa said: “Government can not be formed without majority”.

Before naming the prime minister, Cavaco must talk to all political leaders whose parties have a parliament representation, with discussions likely to take most of next week. A handful of grassroots anti-austerity parties barely registered in the ballot. The Portuguese have a traditional preference for moderate parties, and voters apparently feared knocking the long-awaited economic recovery off-track.