“An absolute majority is not absolute power, it is not governing alone, vst is a responsibility, it is to govern with and for all the Portuguese. » With almost 42% of the vote and at least 117 of the 230 seats in the Assembly of the Republic (pending the counting of the votes of the Portuguese residing abroad), the Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa, is posed as a unifier, late in the night from Sunday January 30 to Monday January 31, from the headquarters of the Socialist Party, in Lisbon, where he celebrated his landslide victory in the early legislative elections.
The socialist has won his bet. At the end of the ballot, he not only confirms his mandate, but also obtains the absolute majority that he has constantly asked voters for in recent weeks. It will allow him to govern with a free hand, without depending on his former allies on the left – neither the party of the radical left Bloco, nor the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). In October 2021, these two parties had refused to support the 2022 finance law, which they considered unambitious in terms of public investment and social measures, and had thus precipitated the holding of early elections.
“Without a stable majority, we will go from crisis to crisis”, had hammered during the campaign Mr. Costa, who had not wanted to give in to the demands of the two parties on his left, with which he has governed as best he could for the past six years. This fragile union of leftists, pejoratively nicknamed the “geringonca”, the “thingy”, had allowed the socialist to wrest power from the right, yet came out on top in 2015. She lived.
“A concentration of the useful vote”
With 4.5% of the vote and five deputies, fourteen less than in the 2019 legislative elections, the Bloco is the main loser of the ballot. From third political force, he moved to sixth position on a recomposed political chessboard. “Mr. Costa created an artificial crisis to obtain an absolute majority. His blackmail seems to have been successful. The false bipolarization caused a concentration of the useful vote, which penalized the left”, commented, bitter, the leader of the Bloco, Catarina Martins. Same diagnosis among the Communists, who are content with 4.4% of the vote and five seats, seven less than in 2019.
This collapse of the alternative lefts allows the far-right party Chega (“Enough”) to take third position, with 7.5% of the vote and twelve deputies. He only won 1.3% of the vote and only one seat in the 2019 legislative elections, which saw him burst onto the Portuguese political scene. “From now on, in Parliament, there will not only be a nice opposition to Antonio Costa”, proclaimed on Sunday, euphoric, its president, André Ventura, proposing to “ restore the dignity of this country”. This former sports commentator is opposed to abortion, in favor of the death penalty, and willingly handles populist speeches with racist overtones – he had notably proposed to confine travelers during the pandemic.
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