Portugal's politics and elections

[VPH]

Enough leader, André Ventura, announces the main candidates for the fall general election and also announces that the party will ran against Marcelo in 2021:

André Ventura, Enough leader, closed, today, the party's founding convention, which gathered around 100 supporters, announcing the head candidates for Lisbon and Porto districts in the October 6th general elections. Ventura will lead the list from Lisbon, while from Porto, Ventura choose GNR officer Hugo Ernano to run as the head candidate. Hugo Ernano was accused of killing a 13 year old gypsy teenager in a police chase in 2008. He was firstly sentenced to 9 years in prison, but after an appeal, his sentence was reduced to a suspensed 4 year prison and a 55,000 euros fine.

Ventura also announced that his party will present a candidate against Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in 2021, as he accused Marcelo of wanting to take selfies with criminals than with police officers. He also announce he will meet with Spanish Vox members next week. He labeled Vox as a "coherent party with strong values" and that he will say that Portugal also has its own Vox.

It's becoming apparent to me that Basta is trying to supplant PNR as the far-right option, albeit coated in slightly less of a negative connotation because of how new they are.

[VPH]

A good piece summing up the crossroads PS finds itself at with the election coming up. https://www.southeusummit.com/europe/portugal/alliances-fray-as-portugals-socialists-rise-in-popularity/?utm_source=Weekly+News+7.26.19&utm_campaign=WeeklyNews7.28.17&utm_medium=email

[VPH]

2019 election debates dates are announced:

The main TV and Radio networks have announced the debates for the 2019 general election campaign. There will be two head-to-head debates between Costa (PS) and Rio (PSD), one in TV and the other in the Radios. There will also be 8 head-to-head debates between the main 6 parties represented in Parliament and one radio debate between all 6 party leaders, PS, PSD, BE, CDU, CDS and PAN. The dates announced are the following:

Between 3 and 15 September - Head-to-head debates between all party leaders (PS, PSD, BE, CDU, CDS and PAN);
16 September - TV debate between Costa (PS) and Rio (PSD), broadcast by RTP1, SIC and TVI;
18 September - Radio debate between the leaders of PS, PSD, BE, CDU, CDS and PAN;
23 September - Radio debate between Costa (PS) and Rio (PSD), broadcast by Antena1, TSF and RR (to be broadcast later in the day on RTP1);

Debates between smaller parties, not represented in Parliament, will be broadcast on cable networks, SIC News, RTP3 and TVI24.

The smaller party debates are my favorites. The EP ones were so darn entertaining, especially the back-and-forth between Andre Ventura and the MAS leader.

[VPH]

Pitagórica poll on the truck drivers strike and crisis:

Q1: Who was on the right side during the strike?

33% Both Bosses and Workers
31% Workers
  9% Bosses
  1% Government
16% No one
10% Undecided

Q2: How do you rate the government's handling of the strike?

34% Reasonable
31% Positive
30% Negative
  5% Undecided

Q3: How do rate the attitude of the truck drivers unions?

47% Negative
34% Reasonable
11% Positive
  8% Undecided

Q4: How do rate the attitude of the truck drivers bosses?

46% Negative
37% Reasonable
  6% Positive
11% Undecided

Poll conducted between 12 and 24 August 2019. Polled 1,525 voters. MoE of 2.56%

Seems like it won't negatively impact the government that much. I would have expected it to.

[VPH]

Why is PSD doing so badly in Madeira? I haven't been watching Portuguese news in a few months.

[VPH]

Who exactly is Livre for? I assumed their niche would be lost by the rise of PAN.

Seems almost like the base falls between BE and PAN. Younger, green-minded voters but maybe those who think PAN is still too much of a one-issue party??

[VPH]

Aximage poll for JE newspaper:

Vote share %:

37.4% PS (-1.0)
25.2% PSD (+4.6)
11.0% BE (+0.8 )
  6.8% CDU (+1.4)
  5.1% CDS (+0.5)
  3.6% PAN (-1.3)
  1.6% Livre (new)
  1.5% CH (new)
  1.2% IL (new)
  5.4% Others/Invalid (-7.7)
  1.2% Undecided (-1.6)

Poll conducted between 21 and 25 September 2019.

That's pretty high for Chega.

[VPH]

My brother and I voted PS and my mom and dad voted PSD. My grandparents and probably most of my uncles and aunts voted PSD. There's an off-chance my maternal grandfather voted Aliança though; he doesn't like Rui Rio and doesn't really like CDS-PP either.

[VPH]

Something interesting I have noticed in previous elections: Small parties tend to perform oddly well in the Algarve. In Faro district in 2015, EVERY SINGLE party that didn't win a seat (and PAN) outperformed their national average, sometimes by quite a bit too. In 2019, most of them were above the national average, albeit by less.

[VPH]

Interesting that IL could pick up even two MPs. Would be fascinating to see them and LIVRE in Parliament. As interesting as Chega might be too, I don't want that.

[VPH]

RIR is doing surprisingly well in Porto for a party that I at first thought was a satirical outfit and ran a really weird campaign.

[VPH]

So it does look like PS gains were concentrated in the Northern coastal area, while it stagnated more in the South and inland. That's interesting because losses for the two left parties were also concentrated in the South (which makes sense since that's where they win most of their votes in the first place). So it seems that the Left as a whole might be stable or even down in the South but significantly up in the North.

And this adds up with global trends. The South is more rural, poorer, and older. Chega's strongest areas in this election also happened to be longtime left-wing strongholds in the Alentejo.

[VPH]

According to data found on https://eyedata-lusa.socialdatalab.pt/ and elaborated in this article:
https://www.noticiasaominuto.com/politica/1334425/cds-pp-mais-forte-nos-concelhos-com-menos-divorcios CDS-PP did best in the parts of Portugal where divorce rates are lowest. Fascinating little demographic tool!

[VPH]

At some point, would it be best if CDS was just merged or brought into a permanent satellite position with PSD?

CDS and PSD have enough of a different history to justify their existence as separate parties. Their positioning relatively speaking differs, with CDS-PP being more socially conservative. Rui Rio is known to be quite moderate as PSD leader, which would make a merger more challenging for the time being. PSD did badly but not badly enough for Rio to leave. Also, the 2015 election alliance under PAF vanished the moment PS formed a government, suggesting that modern differences in direction existed even before Rio.
That said, I think Santana Lopes should entertain a merger between Aliança and CDS-PP. It wouldn't make a huge impact but it's definitely in both their best interests.

Also, how liberal is the new Liberal party that just entered parliament?

I'd call them libertarian. Their platform emphasizes lower taxes, more privatization (including public broadcasting), less centralization (like regional minimum wages instead of a national one), labor market deregulation, more school choice, and personal freedom in general.

[VPH]

PNR got 2% outside of Europe wow

[VPH]

I've always found the conservatism of Leira fascinating, especially when posed against the left-wing bastion of Marinha Grande.

[VPH]

I really don't like the minimum age for bullfights, but I guess I'll take it over the bans parties like BE and PAN advocate for...

[VPH]

When Rui Rio appeared to really be under siege from elements within his own party, I thought CDS-PP had a real chance to revitalize and appeal to disaffected right-leaners in PSD. Rio managed to bring his party back together though.

[VPH]

JKM abstained on a pro-Palestinian vote, against Livre's leadership/manifesto and woke Twitter, her only voters, who are "cancelling" her. That was fast.

Do you have a link to how each MP voted? Curious to see

[VPH]

Tbh I could see JKM and her fans defecting to the Bloco Esquerda