Portuguese General Election

[Hans-im-Glück]

Are relations betwen PSD and CDS good at the time ?
Can't they have a majority even with the PS comeback ?

PSD and CDS must work together, but they will never Love each other. And so long Paulo Portas is the chaiman of the CDS the relations will be not better, because he think that he is the best and all others are idiots.

It is possible that PSD and CDS have the majority and the PS is still the biggest party, but it is very unlikely. The CDS must then have more seats than the PCP and the B.E. together. The Communists have strongholds in the south and the Portuguese Election System is good for them.

Would a different party/coalition in government mean significant changes to the proposed austerity plans that Portugal is supposedly going to undergo as per terms of the EU bailout?

I think there is no change in the politics with a Government change. The only difference is the PS have a bad conscience cut social spending and the PSD don't.

I can't understand how two polls conducted almost at the same time can diverge so much. Either one of them is crap, or both are, or portuguese politics are especially random.

Maybe this is the main problem in Portugal. They can't count

Seriously, the Marktest-polls are every month so different, that I can't believe it they are correct. One Month ago all Institutes say a small advantage for the PSD. Marktest said the PS leads with 4%. Now it the opposite, all give the PS the lead and Marktest don't.

[Insula Dei]

New Polls for Portugal

INTERCAMPUS (12 May 2011)

PS - 36.8%
PSD - 33.9%
CDS-PP - 13.4%
CDU - 7.4%
BE - 6.0%

Marktest (10 May 2011)

PS - 33.4% 
PSD - 39.7%
CDS-PP - 9.0% 
CDU - 6.5%
BE - 4.8%


Normally INTERCAMPUS is the better institute for Polls. It will be a close result and nobody can say who wins. 13,4 % for the CDS-PP seems a little bit to much. In the last years the CDS-PP was underpolled, maybe this time overpolled

I can't understand how two polls conducted almost at the same time can diverge so much. Either one of them is crap, or both are, or portuguese politics are especially random.
[/quote

Probably one of the joys of being a relatively small country noone outside really cares about that much. Flemish polls are worse than this.

[Formerly Californian Tony]

Well, the Portuguese at least would be supposed to care.

[Hans-im-Glück]

A new Poll for Portugal

INTERCAMPUS (16 May 2011)

PS - 35.4%
PSD - 36.1%
CDS-PP - 12.6%
CDU - 7.5%
BE - 6.2%


The PSD is stronger than the PS again, but in reallity it is a tie. With this result we will have a minority Government again.

[Hans-im-Glück]

This evening is the debate between the incumbent Prime Minister José Sócrates (PS) and the leader of the Opposition Pedro Passos Coelho (PSD). They will start in 4 hours 15 minutes. Who understand Portuguese can look it online on RTP 1

We will see who win this debate.

[big bad fab]

Another suspenseful election in Portugal. Fine .

[Hans-im-Glück]

This evening is the debate between the incumbent Prime Minister José Sócrates (PS) and the leader of the Opposition Pedro Passos Coelho (PSD). They will start in 4 hours 15 minutes. Who understand Portuguese can look it online on RTP 1

We will see who win this debate.

What a lousy debate. One of the two clowns must be the next prime minister . Portugal has a bad future.

I have seen a draw to a very low level. Some analysts and a telephone survey of the Universidade Catolica have seen a small lead for Passos Coelho. No matter, this debate will have no big influence to the election result.

This week I'll post my prediction for the election.

[Hans-im-Glück]

New Polls for Portugal

INTERCAMPUS (20 May 2011)

PS - 34.1% 
PSD -  35.7% 
CDS-PP - 12.8%
CDU - 7.5%
BE - 6.8%

Aximage (19 May 2011)

PS - 29.5%   
PSD -  31.1%   
CDS-PP - 12.9%
CDU - 7.3%
BE - 5.2%
Undecided - 14.0%

This were the last polls before the debate between Sócrates and Passos Coelho. It would be a very close result. In this polls it isn't sure PSD and CDS-PP will have the majority in mandates, but it is possible.

[Hans-im-Glück]

A new Poll for Portugal

Universidade Catolica (24 May 2011)

PS - 36% 
PSD -  36% 
CDS-PP - 10%
CDU - 9%
BE - 6%


This is the first poll after the "big debate". with this result PSD and CDs-PP would have no majority.

[PASOK Leader Hashemite]

Why has the BE's support decreased since the last election? And how has the government managed into turning the election into a tie after being down so much and being the midst of an economic depression?

[You kip if you want to...]

Why has the BE's support decreased since the last election? And how has the government managed into turning the election into a tie after being down so much and being the midst of an economic depression?

"Better the devil you know".

[Hans-im-Glück]

Why has the BE's support decreased since the last election? And how has the government managed into turning the election into a tie after being down so much and being the midst of an economic depression?

In short words:

The campaign slogan of the PS is "Defending Portugal" and they show José Sócrates is the Portuguese "Asterix" , who fights for the rights of Portugal. Many Portuguese people know that the PSD have no other plan against the crisis and then they maybe vote for the Politician they know.

The BE had in the last election a dream-result, but with this dream-result come the first problems. Everyone knows the BE is against this and that, but nobody know what is the plan for the future of them. And all they say sounds very impracticable. On the other hand the PCP looks in this election a little bit more modern and maybe they can recover some voters. One problem of the BE is maybe their chairman. I like Francisco Louçã, but with the years many people can't hear him anymore. It is every time the same "music"

[mileslunn]

What are the chances of the PSD + CDS-PP getting a majority.  Wouldn't that be the best coalition to make the necessary spending cuts to get the deficit under control.

[Formerly Californian Tony]

What are the chances of the PSD + CDS-PP getting a majority.  Wouldn't that be the best coalition to make the necessary spending cuts to get the deficit under control.

As if the PS wouldn't make the same cuts anyways...

[Hans-im-Glück]

What are the chances of the PSD + CDS-PP getting a majority.  Wouldn't that be the best coalition to make the necessary spending cuts to get the deficit under control.

As if the PS wouldn't make the same cuts anyways...

^^^^ this and

We had PSD/CDS-PP coalitions in the past and I they weren't very harmonious. When the CDS has tolerated a minority government of the PS, there were far fewer conflicts.

[Hans-im-Glück]

A new Poll for Portugal

EUROSONDAGEM (25 May 2011)

PS - 32.6% 
PSD -  33.1% 
CDS-PP - 13.7%
CDU - 7.6%
BE - 6.6%


Some differences to the poll of the Universidade Católica, but in the end the same. No Majority for PSD/CDS-PP

[Leftbehind]

Let's hope it continues; I find it utterly perverse that the Right should benefit from this.

[mileslunn]

Let's hope it continues; I find it utterly perverse that the Right should benefit from this.

  Why would that be perverse.  The right generally favours less government, which means smaller deficits.  If anything Greece, Portugal, and Ireland could benefit from a right wing government and I see this as someone who is close to the centre in my home country, Canada.  In the early 90s, the Liberals had enough sense to make big spending cuts despite not being a right wing party, but it seems in Europe, electing a right wing party is the only way to get the necessary spending cuts.  I doubt Labour Party in Britain would have made them.

[Leftbehind]

Why would that be perverse.  The right generally favours less government, which means smaller deficits.  If anything Greece, Portugal, and Ireland could benefit from a right wing government and I see this as someone who is close to the centre in my home country, Canada.  In the early 90s, the Liberals had enough sense to make big spending cuts despite not being a right wing party, but it seems in Europe, electing a right wing party is the only way to get the necessary spending cuts.

It's perverse chiefly because the PSD were benefiting from pretending to be something they were not - opposed to the cuts. If they won a mandate to do these "necessary" cuts, then fair dos, but like the Tories here in the UK, it's looking like they won't.

But also in part because these cuts are down to the failure of neoliberalism - a consensus that the Right formed and we in Europe have followed.

I doubt Labour Party in Britain would have made them.

Which is why I still have some faith in them.

[Formerly Californian Tony]

Let's hope it continues; I find it utterly perverse that the Right should benefit from this.

  Why would that be perverse.  The right generally favours less government, which means smaller deficits.  If anything Greece, Portugal, and Ireland could benefit from a right wing government and I see this as someone who is close to the centre in my home country, Canada.  In the early 90s, the Liberals had enough sense to make big spending cuts despite not being a right wing party, but it seems in Europe, electing a right wing party is the only way to get the necessary spending cuts.  I doubt Labour Party in Britain would have made them.

You really know nothing about European politics, do you ?

[ObserverIE]

If anything Greece, Portugal, and Ireland could benefit from a right wing government

Ireland had ten years of government (from 1997 to 2007), during which the seeds of the current disaster were sown, where economic policy was disproportionally influenced by a small neoliberal party, and since 2008 has carried out the largest budget adjustment of any Western economy in the last 30 years with none of the positive results on the deficit that the advocates of expansionary fiscal contraction (EFC) expected.



(from http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2011/03/22/behaving-like-teenagers/)

We were running budget surpluses right up until the crash and had one of the lowest rates of government expenditure as a percentage of GDP in the OECD. Short of a military junta, I don't think we could have moved much further to the right. The main problem here is banking rather than fiscal. Canada in the early 90s, like Ireland in the late 80s, had the advantage of a much larger booming economy next door. The EFC trick doesn't seem to work without one.

Postscript: The last governments that we had that could be described as "left-wing" were the two coalitions involving Labour between 1992 and 1997; the first with the then-considerably larger but economically pragmatic Fianna Fáil, and the second with the rightish but then-not much larger Fine Gael and the much smaller soft-Eurocommunist Democratic Left (since subsumed into Labour - or vice-versa, the current Labour leader having been a DL junior minister at the time). They're generally considered to be the economically-sanest governments of the last 30 years.

[mileslunn]

I am not totally up on the nuances of European politics, but I know it is generally it is the right who is for spending cuts, less government, and privatization of inefficient state owned enterprises.  After all it was Margaret Thatcher who did those things in Britain, while the Tories are making cuts in Britain that Labour would never dare make.  I will admit I am more familiar with British politics than that of other European countries.

[Verily]

I am not totally up on the nuances of European politics, but I know it is generally it is the right who is for spending cuts, less government, and privatization of inefficient state owned enterprises.  After all it was Margaret Thatcher who did those things in Britain, while the Tories are making cuts in Britain that Labour would never dare make.  I will admit I am more familiar with British politics than that of other European countries.

An amusingly naive perspective.

In this case it is the left who are making the cuts (and taking the heat for it) while the right claims that the cuts are not necessary and that they will restore everyone's benefits. Of course, they wouldn't actually do so, which is why it is particularly perverse that the right is gaining from the left imposing austerity. You should, you know, learn something about a country's politics before commenting on them.

[mileslunn]

I am not totally up on the nuances of European politics, but I know it is generally it is the right who is for spending cuts, less government, and privatization of inefficient state owned enterprises.  After all it was Margaret Thatcher who did those things in Britain, while the Tories are making cuts in Britain that Labour would never dare make.  I will admit I am more familiar with British politics than that of other European countries.

An amusingly naive perspective.

In this case it is the left who are making the cuts (and taking the heat for it) while the right claims that the cuts are not necessary and that they will restore everyone's benefits. Of course, they wouldn't actually do so, which is why it is particularly perverse that the right is gaining from the left imposing austerity. You should, you know, learn something about a country's politics before commenting on them.

  I know in general it is rignt wing parties who are for cuts.  Yes the left also make cuts because they have no choice.  In the case of Britain it is the right, not the left making the cuts and likewise I think you would see more spending under the Socialist in France than UMP or SPD vs. CDU/CSU in Germany.   Besides why isn't the public in favour of the cuts anyways.  In the early 90s, we faced a similiar situation here in Canada and it was public pressure that forced the Liberals to make the big spending cuts they did.  In fact when they made the cuts they did, their popularity increased.

[Leftbehind]

Because - as seemingly hard to believe as it is for you - not everyone's onboard with this wonderful neoliberal train, least of all the European left (well, the voters, in any case) and wants to further roll back their hard fought for achievements? As for the Canadian liberals cutting, it's not really comparable as they're a centrist party and thus don't have to worry too much about alienating a leftist support and their cuts were made in a completely different environment to today's, but it's pretty telling they've been reduced to third party status recently by a social democratic party.

I am not totally up on the nuances of European politics, but I know it is generally it is the right who is for spending cuts, less government, and privatization of inefficient state owned enterprises.  After all it was Margaret Thatcher who did those things in Britain, while the Tories are making cuts in Britain that Labour would never dare make.  I will admit I am more familiar with British politics than that of other European countries.

...and she got the worst opinion poll ratings - until Brown amidst the financial collapse - for her troubles, and a legacy where people will be joyous upon hearing of her death. I'm sure its news to you we weren't cheering her on for it?