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Portugal's Move Toward Stability
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12083 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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12 / 1987 |
2,712 Words |
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Desmond McForan
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On July 19, Portugal opted as a nation for political stability in an unprecedented show of support for the right of center Social Democratic Party (SDP) and its charismatic leader, Anibal Cavaco Silva. By winning 50.15 percent of the popular vote, the SDP won 146 of 250 parliamentary seats, becoming the first democratically elected government to win an absolute majority in Portugal's history.
For the first time, having experienced 16 successive governments and 17 elections in the past 13 years, the Portuguese decided to renounce "revolving-door" government and dispense with coalition haggling by backing their best hope for stability and reform.
The election results reflected a considerable and unexpected voter shift away from the left and toward the right, in line with recent elections in Finland, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. This shift began in June 1985, when the SDP broke off its alliance with the Socialist Party and forced an election in which Cavaco Silva and the SDP won 30 percent of the vote and 88 parliamentary seats. Cavaco Silva proceeded to govern Portugal with an SDP-composed minority government and its right-wing ally, the Christian Democrats, who had won 22 seats. In fact, no other alternative government has been possible for Portugal since the Socialist and Communist parties (with 57 and 38 seats respectively) ideologically split and refused to work together. A majority government could have been formed only with the support of the Democratic Renewal Party (DRP), led by ex-President Antonio Ramalho Eanes.
The DRP is widely regarded as an ultra-right party, somewhat reminiscent of the Argentine "Peronists," and was formed by supporters of Eanes after his presidential term came to an end. Having won 45 seats in the 1985 elections, the DRP held a pivotal parliamentary role. But because of fears that it was simply a vehicle for the political ambitions of the military, neither the Right nor the Left wanted to see it have a share of government. For this reason, the DRP brought down Cavaco Silva's government last April by supporting a left-wing censure that opposed his proposed economic and labor reform plans.
This move played directly into Cavaco Silva's hands. Having been frustrated for 18 months by not being able to introduce any real reform measures, he now grasped the opportunity to go to the country hard on the heels of a crisis that he had not initiated.
The response of the electorate was overwhelming. The SDP vote went up 20 percent, the Christian Democrats went down from 10 to 4 percent, the DRP's vote from 18 to 5 percent, and the Communist Party's from 16 to 11 percent. Hence, the electorate exacted their vengeance on Eanes and his party for precipitating the crisis and gave their unqualified support to Cavaco Silva and his mission to reform Portugal.
To market
With the Socialists increasing their parliamentary representation to 59 seats at the expense of Europe's most Stalinist communist party, Cavaco Silva will now be able to work together with Socialist party leader Vitor Constancio, a former colleague form his days at the Bank of Portugal, to undertake some fundamental constitutional revision. Both Cavaco Silva and Constancio recognize the urgent need for revision, if only to
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