There's been a coup in Portugal...No one seems to care

[The Feral Underclass]

Eurozone crosses Rubicon as Portugal's anti-euro Left banned from power

Constitutional crisis looms after anti-austerity Left is denied parliamentary prerogative to form a majority government

"Portugal has entered dangerous political waters. For the first time since the creation of Europe’s monetary union, a member state has taken the explicit step of forbidding eurosceptic parties from taking office on the grounds of national interest.

Anibal Cavaco Silva, Portugal’s constitutional president, has refused to appoint a Left-wing coalition government even though it secured an absolute majority in the Portuguese parliament and won a mandate to smash the austerity regime bequeathed by the EU-IMF Troika."

Rest of the article at the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11949701/AEP-Eurozone-crosses-Rubicon-as-Portugals-anti-euro-Left-banned-from-power.html)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The Telegraph greasing the wheels of anti-EU sentiment?

To be fair, the left only has an 'absolute' majority when you combine three disparate parties. You would normally expect in a liberal democracy that the party with the most votes, even if that falls short of a majority, is given the chance to form a government first, however unlikely that seems. If/when the right fails, i'd be massively surprised if the President did/was able to follow through on his threat to ban a government involving leftists and communists, given that it would paralyse the country for several months, which would arguably be a worse fate for 'the markets' than having a leftist government.

Greece 2.0?

[The Feral Underclass]

Awww, look at you having faith in the integrity of right-wing reaction. Heart warming. :p

[Comrade Jacob]

Would they have done anything? Probably not but the fact they where banned shows the Portuguese ruling-class didn't want to risk it.

[Tim Cornelis]

The largest party has the right to form a government. The right-wing CDS-PP was the largest party. They have the right to form a government. They chose to form a minority government. Hardly a coup, unless I'm missing something.

[The Feral Underclass]

Didn't the coalition stand as a unified party?

[Tim Cornelis]

I don't think so. The CDS and PP are two different parties that joined for electoral purposes, and they're listed as CDS-PP or something. The Communist Party and the Greens are two parties that run as one, and are listed as CDU. Whereas the Socialists, CDU, and Left Bloc are all listed separately.

edit: PSD + CDS-PP actually ran as one party (Portugal Ahead), the left parties didn't.

[The Feral Underclass]

That's boring.

I guess that would be why no one cares.

[Aslan]

Damn! I thought this would turn into a full on revolution!:glare:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Awww, look at you having faith in the integrity of right-wing reaction. Heart warming. :p

Hey - someone has to look after the moderates or the big bad lefties will come and de-select them :lol:

I imagine also part of the reason why this has garnered so little attention is that the main 'left' party is an old social-democratic establishment party and would rule the roost of any left-wing coalition. And also no handsome rock-star finance minister for the press to drool over! :grin:

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It really gets on my tits how people misuse political terms. This is not a coup. There are no tanks in the streets of Lisabon, for fuck's sake. This is the Portuguese president exercising his powers - i.e. the normal functioning of bourgeois democracy. Of course many leftists don't want to recognise this because they're the last people who believe in bourgeois democracy as something good (all the better to advocate that such-and-such be elected) instead of the steaming pile of shit it is. Even if the social-democrats had been able to form a government, it wouldn't have done anything about the situation of Portuguese workers, anyway. The bourgeois state is structurally, well, bourgeois, on the side of the capitalist class. That's such a basic point to state but recently many people have completely gone over to the reformist notion that social change is simply a matter of gaining "control" of the bourgeois state apparatus.

[The Feral Underclass]

It really gets on my tits how people misuse political terms. This is not a coup. There are no tanks in the streets of Lisabon, for fuck's sake. This is the Portuguese president exercising his powers - i.e. the normal functioning of bourgeois democracy. Of course many leftists don't want to recognise this because they're the last people who believe in bourgeois democracy as something good (all the better to advocate that such-and-such be elected) instead of the steaming pile of shit it is. Even if the social-democrats had been able to form a government, it wouldn't have done anything about the situation of Portuguese workers, anyway. The bourgeois state is structurally, well, bourgeois, on the side of the capitalist class. That's such a basic point to state but recently many people have completely gone over to the reformist notion that social change is simply a matter of gaining "control" of the bourgeois state apparatus.

I like that in your mind a coup is only a coup if it involves tanks. Lol.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I like your ability to completely miss the point. Nothing that has happened in Portugal is extralegal. Nothing that has happened in Portugal is unusual (similar things happened in Austria to Haider etc.). Finally, nothing that has happened in Portugal means anything to the proletariat as social-democrats are just as bourgeois as any other party.

[Tim Cornelis]

A coup without tanks is not a coup worth having.
If I can't have tanks, I don't want to be part of your coup!

real coups have tanks!

[The Feral Underclass]

I like your ability to completely miss the point. Nothing that has happened in Portugal is extralegal. Nothing that has happened in Portugal is unusual (similar things happened in Austria to Haider etc.). Finally, nothing that has happened in Portugal means anything to the proletariat as social-democrats are just as bourgeois as any other party.

I'm fairly certain we've already addressed this in the thread without you. As shocking as that might seem.

[Armchair Partisan]

The opposition can remove the PM with a vote of no confidence, can it not? Other than that, for this to be a coup, the right needs to have seized actual power. As the head of a minority government, can the right even do anything in this case other than try to deadlock and sabotage political proceedings until they are booted?

Further, I am curious as to how a coup is defined here. I would think that it is a matter of legality, not morality - that it would involve bypassing or ignoring established laws to some degree.

[Sasha]

The opposition can remove the PM with a vote of no confidence, can it not? Other than that, for this to be a coup, the right needs to have seized actual power. As the head of a minority government, can the right even do anything in this case other than try to deadlock and sabotage political proceedings until they are booted?

Further, I am curious as to how a coup is defined here. I would think that it is a matter of legality, not morality - that it would involve bypassing or ignoring established laws to some degree.

as far as i gathered the case is that Portuguese constitution doesn't allow for new elections within the first year after the last ones, therefor minority governments (esp without an supporting extra partner outside government) are rare and custom is to allow for every party that is willing to construct a majority coalition to try to do so, so the president is right in first giving the assignment to the biggest party but they would normally give the assignment back for the left to form a coalition and only after they would maybe fail to do so then a minority government would be able to enter the table as a possible solution.

and yes, the left bloc can kill the minority government within the first day with a vote of no confidence but then that minority government will stay on as a caretaker government until the elections which are only allowed to take place after a whole year.

so yeah, it might be technically legal but it is as well sort of an bloodless coup (or not a coup as the left is not in power) so yes it is a very questionable move to prevent them from taking power, shutting down the government for a year just to prevent them from taking power and force new elections after that year. it might be technically not a coup but what else should we call a complete suspension of the democratic parliamentarian process out of partisan interests?

[RedMaterialist]

Why aren't the Portuguese people, or the left anyway, in the streets protesting?

[VOp]

Being lurker of this site and being portuguese i'll try to answers some questions and affirmations raised here. First of all, i won't try for you to support the Socialist Party (PS), the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) or the Left Bloc (BE). I'll try just to shed some light on the political situation at the moment, albeit I come from a evaluation close to the PCP, being a member myself.

In regard to the past elections, the rulling coalition had it's 2nd worst result in history of legislative elections when you combine the two parties together (PSD + CDS/PP). It's also the 2nd worst result when you add the vote of the PS, the 3 parties that make the "arc of governance" in the last 40 years (PS;PS+CDS;PS+PSD;PSD;PSD+CDS;presidential initiative with support from these). Coming from an absolute majority in 2011, even in votes, it shows a clear lack of support for the previous Government. The fact that the PS was unable to gain a big upswing (it ended having less MP's than PSD alone) could demonstrate that to the majority of people this party is not an alternative to better their lives. And, for the first time since the 80's, if I'm not mistaken, the parties to the left of the PS gathered 1 million votes, almost 20% of the vote, forming an unfamiliar Parliament.

Now, according to the Constitution, the President nomeates a PM to form a Government, after having listen the parties represented and considering the results. This means the biggest voted list doesn't have the right to form Government outright, the correlation of forces in the Parliament defines the choosing of the President. The turmoil began when the PCP announced that, in face of result of the elections, it would not let the PSD/CDS rule again and said the PS could presente a Government. BE joined this position, PS took the oportunity and this shifted the majority balance, leaving PSD and CDS/PP isolated.

The antidemocratic posture of the President (even for a liberal democracy) was demonstrated firstly to anounce that the present PM should negotiate a viable solution, already pre-anouncing is nomination before following the constitutional procedures. Then, last Thursday he discarded the majority formed, re-nominated the PM and said clearly that he wouldn't ever allow in governance parties the are eurosceptic, against Maastricht, against Euro, against the Fiscal Stability Treaty, against NATO (wich according to the Constitution says that Portugal should seek the dissolution of political-military blocs) and other international commitments, all these to insurance credibility to the creditors. What was said is that there are parties who cannot be in power, therefore, have no purpose in it's existence, in the case being, PCP and BE. There are cases in the Constitution that can ban parties, but none of them applies to this situation, wich is an abuse of power of the President far beyond his limitations.

There are already clear problems of democratic rules that are being overstepped and should be opposed, regardless of the forming Government. But this is a measure taken to prevent to allow even the slight chance of an anti-austerity policy.

The key to understand the support of PCP and BE to the formation of a PS Government is imo the difference of the PS leadership and the intention of a PS voter. The poor result of PS makes them turn to the "left" to gain and hold voters, and the normal PS voter considers himself leftist and many closer to the parties to the left of PS than to the right. There are possibilities of somes reforms that can benefit the workers and the worker's movement, the raise of minimum wage, devolution of pensions and salaries lost, less working hours and regain holidays, less taxes that affect mostly consumers and revert privatization processes, this are a few that I remember. This is why there is a lack of respect for the law by the President and the rulling coalition. There is a chance that the demands of the people in the last years could be met.

One way to see that this is a real possibility is the fact that the media has unleashed the Red Scare once again.

But the present situation is this: Rulling coalition in minority, already were unable to elect the President of Parliament and lost to a name supported by the majority, 3 motions of no confidence were announced by every party of the majority, so they should pass, in that case, as elections cannot be called before June 2016, the President: 1) calls PS leader to form Government; 2) Government of presidential initiative; 3) caretaker government until the new President takes power (election in January 2016).

So things are not in it's usual, and I hope this can make more people to actually care about politics and understand their role. About demonstrations against this process, the labour movement never ended it's protests, also there was a demo against NATO drills in this weekend, so the struggle goes on, but to this in particular it's difficult because the closure of this situation it's very unclear. I woulnd't seem odd to me that PS changes it's mind, and mobilize the streets around a PS Government just to have him rejoining the "arc of governance" would be pretty damaging.

[ACME_MAN]

Couldn't have said it better.


A coup without tanks is not a coup worth having.
If I can't have tanks, I don't want to be part of your coup!

real coups have tanks!

[Emmett Till]

Why aren't the Portuguese people, or the left anyway, in the streets protesting?

Well, so much for the "coup."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/11/portugal-senses-a-chance-for-change-after-hated-government-is-ousted

So the Portuguese Socialist Party, which has been shoving austerity down the throats of the people of Portugal in and out of office for the last forty years, will be back in power, this time supported by the left.

Including the Portuguese Communist Party, whose brief period at the helm more or less in Portugal in the 1970s during the Revolution ended when the PSP and its CIA backers mounted a murderous mob witchhunt against the PCP, burning down PCP headquarters and beating up communists and all other leftists on the street.

So now you have incredible popular illusions about what the PSP back in power will mean, which the PCP and the rest of the Portuguese left are responsible for. This is a party no different from the French Socialist Party or the German Social Democratic Party. It's not even a SYRIZA, and we all know by now what SYRIZA is all about.

[RedSonRising]

Portugal Rejoices as Anti-Austerity Left Coalition Forms to Oust Right Wing

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/10/portugal-rejoices-anti-austerity-left-coalition-forms-oust-right-wing

http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/headlines/lisbon_rally.jpg?itok=RcZ_Pfa2

In a surprising development for Europe's anti-austerity movement, Portugal's three reigning leftist parties on Tuesday formed an unexpected coalition to oust the country's center-right government from power and end years of punishing cuts and economic hardship.

The moderate Socialist Party forged what is being called "an unprecedented alliance" with the Communist Party and the radical Left Bloc—which is affiliated with Greece's Syriza party—to secure a 122-seat majority in the 230-seat Parliament and vote down a series of austerity proposals. The defeat brought the government's automatic resignation.

Socialist leader António Costa is now expected to become prime minister with "a broad, leftwing coalition government, which hopes to ease austerity while still adhering to European Union rules," the Guardian reports.

During last month's election, the center-right party lost its four-year parliamentary majority because of public backlash against punishing austerity measures imposed following the 2011 financial crisis and bailout. Under outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coehlo, the government cut salaries and pensions, slashed public services, and introduced significant tax hikes. In the beginning of this year, 55 percent of the population was either unemployed or held a precarious work situation.

Under the new agreement, the coalition pledges to roll back these cuts and end the privatization of public assets.

"The taboo has ended; the wall has been broken," Costa said Tuesday after the vote. "This is a new political framework; the old majority cannot pretend to be what it stopped being."

Outside the Parliament building in Lisbon, thousands of Portuguese citizens rallied in anticipation of the vote, chanting "People united will never be defeated."