The Portuguese election of 2019: Costa continues despite further fragmentation of the Portuguese vote

The Portuguese parliamentary election of 2019, which took place yesterday, was widely recognised as a convincing victory for the Socialist Party (PS) government of Antonio Costa; with 106 seats the Socialists finished only 8 seats short of an overall majority, which is almost impossible to achieve in Portugal due to way its parliamentary seats are distributed and the wide divide between the capital, Lisbon, the major city of Porto, the rural heartlands in the east, and the relatively poor south. A redistribution has widened this divide, with Lisbon and Porto gaining one seat apiece, with two rural districts of Viseu and Guarda losing one seat apiece; Lisbon and Porto alone elect 38.2% of Portugal's MPs (Lisbon elects 48 MPs, Porto 40 MPs), which is why leaders from significant Portuguese political parties almost invariably stand in either Lisbon or Porto.

The Socialist victory in Portugal was in fact not particularly significant; its vote share increased by only 4.4% and single-party majorities have been won on several occasions in Portugal in the past. The fact that the Social Democratic Party, PSD (actually Portugal's main conservative liberal party, similar to the Dutch VVD in outlook) failed to renew an alliance with the more conservative People's Party was a significant factor, with the Social Democrats losing 12 seats and the People's Party losing 13, leaving them with just one more seat than the People-Animals-Nature party, Portugal's main animal rights party. Clearly the gestalt theory of politics prevails once again. The only four districts where the PSD topped the poll, apart from the island of Madeira, were Vila Real, Braganca, Viseu, and Leiria. In the first three districts,  PS has only topped the poll once in the modern era, in 2005 in each case, and in Leiria PS has never topped the poll; Leiria is also where the People's Party polled best was 5.9%.

Parties to the left of the Socialists lost out amid Antonio's success; the Left Bloc's vote share decreased by 0.5% but retained its 19 seats, whereas the Communist-Green Unitarian Democratic Coalition (CDU) lost 5 seats, leaving it with 12, despite its vote only decreasing by 1.9% to 6.7%, as it lost key seats in smaller districts in the south, although notably they finished second ahead of the PSD in Evora. Many of their floating voters were won over by the decent reputation of Antonio Costa's first government, especially with its reversal of many austerity policies Portugal endured during the tenure of Pedro Coelho.

Three new parties entered the Portuguese Assembly, the highest in Portugal since the inauguration of the Third Portuguese Republic in 1975. The extreme nationalist Enough party won its first seat despite only polling 1.3% nationally, representing the first entry by extreme nationalists into the Portuguese parliament in a country that has consistently and decisively rejected the hard right since 1975 in the same way Spain has in the modern era. The classical liberal Liberal Initiative party also made its debut with 1.29% of the vote nationally; both Enough (CH) and Liberal Initiative (IL) won their solitary seat in Lisbon.  In better news for progressive politics, the classical green LIVRE party won its first seat, doing best in Lisbon in the same way many green parties in Europe poll best in their respective nation's capital city. LIVRE's vote share in Lisbon, at 2.1%, was nearly twice as much as their national vote share of 1.1% across Portugal. It polled nearly treble its national vote share, 3.1%, in inner Lisbon. Nine political parties obtained representation in the Assembly of the Republic in total, the highest in Portuguese history.

Of the Portuguese political parties that failed to win any seats, Alliance, a splinter from the PSD, came closest with 0.77%, whilst the wooden spoon went to the Trotskyist Socialist Alternative Movement with just 0.06%. The Democratic Republican Party, founded by former Earth Party MEP Antonio Marinho e Pinto, lost most of what little support it had, and every other small party experienced a vote share decrease compared to 2015.

Turnout remained miserably low, dropping to 54.5% from 55.9% in 2015. However, with the base of smaller parties growing strongly, the downward trend in turnout will likely be reversed in future Portuguese elections. Antonio Costa can easily continue as Prime Minister of Portugal from confidence and supply from even just one of either the Left Bloc or the Unitarian Democratic Coalition.







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