The First Cracks
No one who has been following Portuguese politics was surprised with October’s headlines on the national election. The socialists were able to remain in power and be the most voted party with more than a third of the votes. The broader left became stronger while the right-wing opposition had one of its worst results ever. The vote concentration in a single right-wing party avoided a major electoral disaster. The surprise of the night was the unprecedented entry of three new parties in the parliament, with one MP each: a personalist far-right party, a new business friendly party which sees Ireland as a role model and an eco-socialist party (European ally of Yannis Varoufakis’ DiEM 25) which promised to bring non-discussed racial issues to the table.
The government success stems from a combination of economic growth with a balanced budget; popular policies such as continuous minimum wage hikes; and a friendly relation with the President, currently the most popular politician in Portugal and a former member of the main opposition party. While public opinion was dedicated to climate change issues during the campaign period, the right focused on attacking the Socialists’ 2016 fuel tax hike; and also ignoring the sharp price reduction of public transports conducted by the government in the last year. This scenario made the opposition’s efforts to capitalise on accusations of public mismanagement, corruption and high taxes mostly ineffective — the Socialist Party saw its vote share rising even in places tragically affected by wildfires in the last years.
After four years of a new political solution in which the second most voted party governed, a model called “contraption” in a derogatory way, tactical voting on the biggest parties decreased. However, no medium-sized party was able to increase its vote share as voters felt free to choose smaller and new forces.
Next two to four years
Prime Minister Antonio Costa, someone who The Economist called “something of a hero to Europe’s centre-left”, was not forced to make any formal agreement with the parties to his left this time. Mr Costa declared his intentions to govern with the support of the left (plus a non-ideological eco-animalist party) and completing the four-year term he was elected for; however, both seem highly dubious to happen.
First, the Socialists’ cabinet is mostly composed by the party’s centrist wing that may prioritise budget agreements with the current leader of the opposition, a man who describes himself as a moderate centrist. Second, PM Costa has the ambition of becoming the most relevant politician of his generation and the political successor of Mario Soares, the only Socialist who was both Prime Minister and President of the Republic, within his party. Antonio Costa will manage the longevity of his government with a single target in mind: winning the 2026 Presidential election. The career of the Portuguese Prime Minister has shown that he is willing to leave his position to pursue more ambitious plans and he is able to exploit a political crisis from his opponents’ mistakes. Lastly, the Socialists took less than 48 hours to negotiate with four parties and decided not to have any confidence and support agreement with any party. The Government’s decisions signal neither a four-year term nor a coherent left-wing parliamentary majority.
Signs of deterioration
Despite the fact that Portugal lost its status of country without far-right, most of the political establishment considers that the Portuguese political system does not face any systemic risk. The explanations range from the country’s migration composition, the recent fascist past and behavioural theories about the voters. The signals that the Portuguese political system is deteriorating are several and the newly elected far-right MP is just one of them trying to take advantage of the remaining ones.
Overall voting
Compared with the 2005 election, the last one before the financial crisis, there was fewer 500 thousand people going to the polls; the main five parties lost more than one million votes in a current universe of 5 million voters. The combined left lost 10 thousand votes compared with the last election, in a period in which unemployment rate moved from 12.4% to 6.6%. Year after year, a party needs fewer votes to obtain a majority in parliament which makes the election system much more fragile to populists and demagogues. New political movements are emerging to fill empty spaces as it could be seen in three new parties in the parliament plus four MPs for the animal welfare party. Mr Costa was in fact the most voted party leader in the last election, but that does not necessarily mean that he is much appreciated.
Medium-sized parties — a wall crumbling
The communist party and the Christian Democrats have been suffering major losses in the last years: the communists lost the control of several councils and the christian democrats saw its public political funding cut sharply after its parliamentary group shrank from 18 to 5 MPs. These two ideologically opposed groups have been historically strong barriers against far-right movements: both have strong local political structures (communists in the south and christian democrats in the north); the communists have been steering the political debate to class politics not leaving room to race/ethnic divisions; and the christian democrats integrated most of the sympathizers of the former fascist regime in an openly democratic party. Any additional loss of institutional power and funding from these parties is likely to open a new crack in the political system.
Crisis and reconfiguration of the right
Although the main opposition party (PSD) survived the psychological 25% barrier, it did not avoid a much-expected internal war. The party is divided between the incumbent moderates and neoliberals who claim to be firstly “anti-socialists”. A possible takeover from the latter faction could lead to a business friendly/nativist coalition similar to Trump’s Republican party or Bolsonaro’s cabinet in the medium-term. Even the party leader said that it would be willing to meet and discuss proposals with Andre Ventura (far-right leader), a PSD defector.
Mr Ventura has been successfully trying to benefit from the weakness of traditional unions and break the relation between the left and unions/workers’ representatives mainly through the armed forces. Additionally, he has adopted a tabloid way of doing politics by making public appearances in major disasters — a tactic that made the current President of the Republic the most popular politician of the country.
The rise and slow fall of the new left
Joacine Katar Moreira, the single MP from the newly elected eco-socialist party, has been one of the main characters of this political cycle. After months being hit by racist attacks and fake comments about herself, Katar Moreira could have not started her career as MP in a worst way. She and her party have been fighting each other, leading to an oversized journalistic coverage of herself. Several political mistakes from this group, in such a short period, are leaving the new right-wing parties alone to declare themselves anti-establishment.
Left’s choice
It is not likely that Portugal will be ruled by a majority far-right government in the next years but voters’ fatigue combined with a future possible economic slow-down could turn the tables. A couple of months after the election, the far right is polling at 5% (up from 1.3%) without any major political crisis. As seen in Spain, political instability can turn an unknown far-right party into the third largest force in three years.
The government and the left have four years to fight income inequality, stabilize the national health service, protect the population from environmental disasters related to climate change and start reversing society’s ageing which undermines the current welfare state. Otherwise, the left will lose more than 10 thousand votes in the next election.
