🇵🇹 Portugal's politics and elections 3.0

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I find it funny that CHEGA activists seem to just now discover that it's a personal vehicle for André Ventura and his ambitions (which apparently didn't have a home in the PSD) not an open and democratic big tent.

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"Monty Python" moment of BE:

https://twitter.com/Lusa_noticias/status/1570356596882178050

Catarina Martins defends the reduction of BE employees with “right accounts”

In an interview to Público newspaper, BE leader Catarina Martins responded to criticisms that the party is firing party employees by saying that her party needs to have "right accounts" in order to have its independence and be debt free. At the same time, BE is accusing the PS majority government of only thinking of "right accounts" and "balanced budget" and of forgeting social aid and relief.

The political scene in Portugal is becoming schizophrenic: PCP is now a pariah because of their pro-Russia positions; BE has gone full nonsense by preaching one thing and then doing the exact opposite; PS has become full center-right, literally, with Costa warning that there is no money, proposing pension reform and basically admitting that "there's no alternative"; the PSD, well, is basically saying "we will cut taxes, increase pensions according to law and grow the economy". How? That's the question. CHEGA continues to be "a personality cult", while IL is, IMO, just copying the PSD, or the PSD is copying IL, whatever, nothing new coming from them. PAN and Livre are basically irrelevant right now.

It's time for Tino de Rans and RIR to dominate the political scene ala Macron LMAO

In all seriousness, this seems like a time of political stagnation in Portugal. There's theoretically ground to Costa's left that he is risking but he also smartly knows that nobody wants to vote for the left-wing parties right now.

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Intercampus poll for CMTV/CM newspaper:

Vote share %: (after 15.9% of undecideds are excluded)

28.8% PS (-4.4)
26.2% PSD (-2.9)
13.6% CHEGA (+2.7)
  8.0% IL (-0.6)
  7.3% BE (+0.2)
  6.4% CDU (+3.4)
  2.7% Livre (+0.1)
  2.7% PAN (+0.6)
  1.6% CDS (+0.9)
  2.7% Others/Invalid (-0.1)

Hm, what explains PCP's sudden gain in the polls? New leadership? I would have expected discontented PS voters to gravitate more to Livre and BE than PCP.

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I read this interesting (older) history of CDS-PP this weekend: http://analisesocial.ics.ul.pt/documentos/1223396163T3dDP4zc0Vt79YR2.pdf
and it got me thinking. CDS-PP historically seems to have had three major groups, sometimes with a good bit of overlap. None of them are recoverable today.

-Actual centrists, some of whom flirted with PS at times. This group vanished long ago and is unrecoverable due to PSD's relative moderation.
-Market liberals like Lucas Pires (he did also have curious harder right links) who ended up being co-opted by Cavaco Silva and PSD's neoliberal turn. This group is now either on the right of PSD or supporting IL. CDS-PP isn't going to win them back.
-National populists like Manuel Monteiro. This group probably left CDS-PP to support CHEGA and Ventura is a more exciting option for them than Melo and CDS-PP.

Even with PSD's pathetic opposition performance, CDS-PP is polling literally at zero. I'm just wondering how long it is before they die off as a party. It's hard to imagine them finding support anywhere.

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15.2% for CHEGA would be more than double their performance from the last election yikes

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What a strange shift--if anything I would have expected it to be low-education middle-aged and older voters in rural areas, following the trends we've seen in other Western European countries. I know Portugal is somewhat of an anomaly with less educated voters still supporting the left, but it's no longer the anomaly it was until recently when it comes to right-wing populists in parliament.

Just guessing, but perhaps owing to the later entry into democracy, trends that happen elsewhere come later? PPD/PSD speedran the transition from left-leaning social democracy to neoconservatism from Carneiro to Cavaco that other Christian Democratic parties underwent during a longer period postwar.

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What a strange shift--if anything I would have expected it to be low-education middle-aged and older voters in rural areas, following the trends we've seen in other Western European countries. I know Portugal is somewhat of an anomaly with less educated voters still supporting the left, but it's no longer the anomaly it was until recently when it comes to right-wing populists in parliament.

Just guessing, but perhaps owing to the later entry into democracy, trends that happen elsewhere come later? PPD/PSD speedran the transition from left-leaning social democracy to neoconservatism from Carneiro to Cavaco that other Christian Democratic parties underwent during a longer period postwar.

Because of Portugal's long term similarity to Greece I might be able to explain.

Both Greece and Portugal are very urban, 40% of their population lives in just 2 large cities.

The greek countryside, apart from the tourist areas, became impoverished and abandoned during the 20th century and the population fled to the Capital in search of government aid and public sector jobs.

So because most live in dense cities and depend on the government, the Center Left in various forms has been dominant.

However since the beggining of the 21st century the center-left establishment that has governed since 1974, has been unable to reverse declining living standards in urban areas.

So the population is increasingly looking to the opposite side, to the right wing parties for leadership and policies to reverse the decline, if those can be found.

In a word: They blame those groups who have been in charge all these decades.

That's how it looks in Greece, and I think it probably applies to Portugal too given the similar demographics and economy.

It is younger people in urban areas who suffer the most from chronically low wages, ridiculous rent prices and the cost of living in general.

Of course, you could argue Chega's policies will do nothing to alleviate those issues, but a vote for Chega is a middle finger to the PS government and that's the message they want to pass.

The shift of the PSD from "social democrat" to a normal liberal conservative party was faster because it was already one, the issue was the environment around the revolution that basically banned any conservative/liberal type speech. So, in order to have success, you had to follow the rule book until it didn't matter anymore, which started by 1976. In fact, the PPD, in 1975, had a lot of support from the Catholic Church, very important in rural areas, and from more urban liberal aligned voters.

It's true that their base was more right-leaning than PS from the beginning, especially including landowners and voters in the North who tended to be more religious. But Sá Carneiro early on spoke a discourse of the center-left, even talking about building democratic socialism very early on. Pretty quickly they pushed against the PCP and other leftists and became social democrats, but PPD even applied to join Socialist International (which was bound to be rejected because Mario Soares had spent years building up international relationships for PS). The book "Francisco Sá Carneiro - O Guia da Direita Liberal" by Ana Catarina Pinto provides a very well-researched legislative history of the PPD and Carneiro.

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It's true that their base was more right-leaning than PS from the beginning, especially including landowners and voters in the North who tended to be more religious. But Sá Carneiro early on spoke a discourse of the center-left, even talking about building democratic socialism very early on. Pretty quickly they pushed against the PCP and other leftists and became social democrats, but PPD even applied to join Socialist International (which was bound to be rejected because Mario Soares had spent years building up international relationships for PS). The book "Francisco Sá Carneiro - O Guia da Direita Liberal" by Ana Catarina Pinto provides a very well-researched legislative history of the PPD and Carneiro.

Yes, Sá Carneiro started on with a very strong tone in favour of the "path to Socialism", and there's even documentation that shows that Soares and Sá Carneiro had talks about what kind of parties would they form and that Sá Carneiro even toyed with idea of forming an "alliance" between PS and PPD, something that Soares always rejected. But, Sá Carneiro started changing his tone after 76 and became more and more moderate as he understood that his base was anything but leftwing. This, of course, created tensions within the PSD and adding his fragile health, Sá Carneiro resigned from the leadership in 1977. After this, the more leftwing factions of the party took over the leadership and a split was imminent. It happened in 1978, with the "Unpostponable Options" manifesto and 40 or so PSD MPs left the party and formed their own center-left party. By then, the fate of the PSD was settled: Sá Carneiro returned to the leadership and started negotiations to form a "democratic majority" against the leftwing majority. In 1979, the Democratic Alliance (AD) was formed between PSD, CDS, PPM and the Reformers, PS dissidents.

With a fun PS-CDS coalition in there for a bit too haha

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What CHEGA did during Lula's speech was unquestionably ugly but I think it was best reprimanded and then ignored. Giving them more reason to tout themselves as martyrs is not a good idea.

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I love how Marcelo is always doing something completely random when the media wants to talk to him. Eating ice cream, shuffling pavement stones, etc.

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I love how Marcelo is always doing something completely random when the media wants to talk to him. Eating ice cream, shuffling pavement stones, etc.

The problem of Marcelo is exactly that. He exposes himself too much and that's why his position is quite diminished right now, and he can only blame himself. These kind of things like eating ice-cream and shuffling pavement stones and so on, are making him look a bit silly and not serious. The same applies to Costa, as while his Infrastructure minister, João Galamba, was being grilled by MPs in the TAP CPI, and contradicting himself a lot, the PM was filmed signing at a Coldplay concert in Coimbra city.

Yeah neither of them is helping their case by being so cagey yet also so in the public, but the whole scandal seems very complicated.

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I love how Marcelo is always doing something completely random when the media wants to talk to him. Eating ice cream, shuffling pavement stones, etc.

The problem of Marcelo is exactly that. He exposes himself too much and that's why his position is quite diminished right now, and he can only blame himself. These kind of things like eating ice-cream and shuffling pavement stones and so on, are making him look a bit silly and not serious. The same applies to Costa, as while his Infrastructure minister, João Galamba, was being grilled by MPs in the TAP CPI, and contradicting himself a lot, the PM was filmed signing at a Coldplay concert in Coimbra city.

Yeah neither of them is helping their case by being so cagey yet also so in the public, but the whole scandal seems very complicated.

Without going into details, they are extensively explained in past posts, it's basically this: When you mix stupidity with incompetence, spice it up with a bit of internal party infighting and serve it by trying to cover up the whole thing.... Voilá, there it is.

Yeah, I've read quite a bit about it myself but I mean it's not something that makes perfect sense for Costa certainly, and to a lesser extent Marcelo to come out super clearly and publicly on.

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Apparently there’s a new party on the right called Nova Direita led by Ossana Liber (Angolan Portuguese woman, not the typical face of Portugal’s right wing). She used to be in Aliança, which bombed badly as an anti-Rui Rio option for disillusioned PSD voters. Their platform is somewhat vague but seems souveranist, somewhat critical of Ukraine aid, supportive of measures to raise fertility, and pro-nuclear. Not sure they’ll make a dent in the polls considering Chega likely has the target audience locked down.

[VPH]

Apparently there’s a new party on the right called Nova Direita led by Ossana Liber (Angolan Portuguese woman, not the typical face of Portugal’s right wing). She used to be in Aliança, which bombed badly as an anti-Rui Rio option for disillusioned PSD voters. Their platform is somewhat vague but seems souveranist, somewhat critical of Ukraine aid, supportive of measures to raise fertility, and pro-nuclear. Not sure they’ll make a dent in the polls considering Chega likely has the target audience locked down.

Not even legalized yet. She filed her party to the Constitutional Court a few months ago but the Court has yet to give the final OK. I would say that, so far, it's a fringe party on the right and will have no electoral impact until the 2024 EU elections. If the party runs in those elections, it could have an impact as the vote is more scattered and "militant" but all depends on a series of factors from the campaign, the state of country by then, media coverage and recognition, etc. But, in the short/medium term, no impact at all on other parties on the right. Adding to the above, she got just 1,000 votes in the her 2021 run for Lisbon city hall.

Yeah it seems pretty fringe and if I had to guess will go the way of PND (which was at least hilariously weird sometimes) and Aliança. But who knows, it could be the next MPT in the European elections if everything goes right for them.

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Pedro Nuno Santo represents the left of PS, while José Luís Carneiro seems to be more from the centrist side. Am I correct on this? 

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This return to a coalition ticket is probably CDS' last chance to get people elected. If they had run alone again and tanked once again, I don't see how they would have a future.

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I'd be tempted by Chega but I prefer Porto to Benfica so clearly not the party for me.

For me, that's reason nº 3 and 5 to never vote in that party or man.

In fact, there's proof that the Porto area is anti-CHEGA: In the 2022 election, CHEGA only got 4% of the vote in the Porto urban area, against the nationwide 7%, and the latest polls show CHEGA polling well bellow the national average in the Porto area. On the other hand, IL has a very strong base in Porto. Football and politics don't usually mix in Portugal, Rui Rio is evidence of this, but Ventura's strong attachment to Benfica and his defense of his club while a pundit on CMTV, has made him a "persona non grata" to a majority of Porto fans.

I would imagine the Porto area is more educated than a lot of the country, right? Probably doesn't help CHEGA and explains why IL and BE do well there.

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I wish they would poll a hypothetical with Ventura in there. I can't envision a realistic scenario where he's an option for PM but I would be curious how many prefer him to a scandal-ridden PS or Montenegro, who has been a weak leader for the PSD afflicted with his own scandals.

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PPM's monarchism is irrelevant. In the Azores (the only place in the country where they are relevant) they are a fairly standard center-right party with a green-ish agrarian focus.

PPM was one of the first parties in Portugal to raise environmental issues on the campaign trail, thanks to founder Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, a famous landscape architect and political thinker. He began in the anti-Salazar monarchist camp (yes, it was a thing) and ended up aligning with PS and then founding the Earth Party too (who had a surprising performance in the 2014 EU election and then basically vanished from the face of the earth).

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I quite liked the PPM leader's speech at the AD announcement, probably owing to my very Catholic brand of politics. But I'm not voting AD just for PPM who look unlikely to get a seat and don't really trust PSD or CDS-PP. I'll likely stick with PS like last time (which I align with based on my approval of their economic stances), just less enthusiastically. We'll see what protest vote options I have though.

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I quite liked the PPM leader's speech at the AD announcement, probably owing to my very Catholic brand of politics. But I'm not voting AD just for PPM who look unlikely to get a seat and don't really trust PSD or CDS-PP. I'll likely stick with PS like last time (which I align with based on my approval of their economic stances), just less enthusiastically. We'll see what protest vote options I have though.

You'll always have Tino de Rans' party.

I'm voting AD although I have no confidence at all in Montenegro, but I have even less confidence in Pedro Nuno Santos. I would considered voting IL if they were still led by Cotrim Figueiredo, but Rui Rocha is a total casting error, so no way.

It's too bad Tino left the leadership. Not the worst protest vote in the world though!

Totally makes sense--IL is polling well in spite of Rocha it seems. Probably taking advantage of Montenegro's inability to be the strong leader the right needs.

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Nova Direita is an eclectic and intriguing mix of positions--economic nationalism, pro-life, for integral ecology, anti-woke. I don't imagine they'll catch on a ton but their presence does complicate things on the right somewhat. At least with Paulo Freitas do Amaral, it seems his reasoning in joining was in part that CDS-PP was too economically anti-statist.

https://novadireita.pt/portugal-e-possivel/

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High-speed rail definitely isn't cheap

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I follow Portuguese politics pretty closely but have always wondered why Madeira is so much more right-leaning than the Açores. Is it because Madeira has historically been better off economically?

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Would match with younger voters moving towards right wing populist parties in other European countries. In Portugal, I wonder too whether the memory of PS’ role in democratization is fading. Younger and middle age voters just don’t have that heroic image of PS from 1974-1976.