Interesting. Really terrible result for Ensemble, but SP&M is a weird place, and Macronism tanking in the DTOMs is no surprise at this point. Sounds like NUPES might have a decent shot in the runoff, but again, so many unknowns apply here.
But that's the point, I believe that many on the left, saw the Geringonça experiment as model and something that worked and, sure it's oversimplification, like you said, but the issue is that, and it's a very interesting discussion, did it gave positive results? It's off topic from this board of course, but I'm not sure the country improved, because the PS used the left and, in the end, this "hopefull" experiment for the left, turned out to be it's ultimate downfall.
I mean, the electoral fortunes of the Portuguese left are one thing, but I think everyone can agree that the Geringonça government did a far better job of stirring the Portuguese economy compared to the other PIIGS countries that went through devastating austerity programs. Which was clearly Corbières' point here. Again, as a parallel it has obvious limits, but I don't think we need to overinterpret it either.
Perhaps this is off-topic at this point, but "did it really"? The Gerinconça government, as much as I love it, came in a bit too late to actually deal with austerity, which was something that mostly applies to the early 2010s.
As for comparisons to the other PIGS countries; I think we all know how much of a disaster SYRIZA's time in government was, though tbf most if not all of the damage came in very early in their term. Italy had a left of centre-governments during that time which were also good even if not as good as Portugal's (mostly led by Renzi).
Spain is the outlier in that, for a good part of the late 2010s, it did have a right of centre government so it could show a comparison with "right-wing austerity". However Rajoy's second term was basically a 2.5 year long "lame duck" period, mostly if not exclusively defined by the Catalonia crisis and general dysfunction and instability in government.
In any case, taking 2015-2018; here are 2 metrics of economic performance in GDP per capita and Unemployment
Unemployment:Portugal: 13.4-7.0% (-6.4%)
Italy: 12.3->10.9% (-1.4%)
Greece: 25.8->19.5% (-6.3%)
Spain: 23.2->15.4% (-7.8%)
GDP per capita growthPortugal: +9%
Italy: +4%
Greece: +3%
Spain: +8%
So it seems that Rajoy's caretaker right wing government did mostly match Portugal's metrics, albeit with Spain starting from a much, much worse position. Greece is interesting in that it did saw big unemployment decreases but little GDP growth. And Italy gets the worst results overall, particularly on unemployment, though I suppose "Italy is poorly ran" is not exactly a hot take.
Also I guess that there's another metric I am forgetting about which involves "quality of employment created", which presumably was much better in Portugal
