Portugal's Socialists lose absolute majority

Portugal's ruling Socialist Party won the country's general election on Sunday, although it lost its absolute majority, exit polls suggest. The Socialists garnered an estimated 36.5 percent of the vote, according to polls reported by SIC television channel, giving the party 96 seats, down from the 121 MPs the centre-left won in 2005.

The main opposition party, the Social Democrats (PSD), which is a force of the centre-right despite its name and the party of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, came in second with 29 percent, giving them a probable 78 seats in the 230-seat parliament.

However, the big winner of the campaign was the far-left, scooping up a combined 17.7 percent, with the Left Bloc, an alliance sometimes compared to Germany's Die Linke of anti-globalisation activists, ecologists, Trotskyists and Maoists, gaining 9.85 percent, giving it 16 seats, and the Portuguese Communist Party securing 7.9 percent and 15 seats. The rightist Popular Party also boosted its standing, climbing to 21 seats up from 12 in 2005 with its 10.5 percent.

Domestic analysts have attributed the victory of the left of the left to alienation amongst blue-collar workers, civil servants and young people from the the Socialists, who ahead of the economic crisis had imposed formidable public spending cuts that provoked massive protests, including a general strike. In the wake of the economic crisis, the Socialists appeared to have dusted off the Keynesian textbooks, but to little avail.

According to the Bank of Portugal, the economy is set to decline 3.5 percent in 2009, with unemployment on 9.1 percent and rising. Portugal is not however faring as badly as its Iberian neighbour, Spain, with unemployment at half the rate and below the EU average. The country also emerged from recession this year, with GDP growth of 0.3 percent in the second quarter.

Both leading parties ahead of the election ruled out a grand coalition and the Socialists, the Left Bloc and the Communists have said they would not form a leftist coalition, although such a move would give the parties a comfortable 127-seat majority.

Abstention climbed in the election from 36.9 percent in 2005 to 41.1 percent.
Euobserver