Portugal's politics and elections

[Antonio the Sixth]

New healthcare basic law: PS and PSD start negotiations to form a broad law.

After the PS failed to gain support from the BE and CDU to approve their version of the new basic healthcare law, the Socialists are now talking with the Social Democrats. The PSD, by the voice of Rui Rio, is willing to analyse the PS draft and will, likely, present a list of demands to the PS, which are the maintenance of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in the NHS, and other demands from the PSD own healthcare law. The PS, on their part, are willing to approve some PSD policies, that they voted against a few months ago.

Would the bill as a whole push Portuguese healthcare in a more socialized or market-based direction overall?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Vote by Education:

College graduate:

25% PSD
23% PS
10% BE
  5% CDU
  4% CDS
  3% PAN
12% Others/Invalid
19% Undecided/Will not vote

Less than High school:

31% PS
18% PSD
  5% BE
  5% CDU
  3% CDS
  1% PAN
  7% Others/Invalid
30% Undecided/Will not vote

Poll conducted between 26 and 29 September 2019. Polled 3,226 voters. MoE of 1.7%.

At this point it's so refreshing to see a country where the education divide still runs in the direction it should run. Who knows how long that will last, but still.

Anyway, the trend here is worrying, and I fully expect it to continue in the next few days, but the left's lead is big enough that we're probably safe from a PSD-CDS majority. What do we expect to happen if neither PSD-CDS nor PS-PAN have a majority? Would it be a continuation of the current deal with the PS and the left parties, or have the bridges been definitively burned there? And if so, what's the alternative?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I see, that makes sense. Despite disappointing some of the early hopes placed in him, Costa has been a relatively decent leader by the standards of modern social democracy, undoing at least some of the damage done by hyper-austerity. I can only hope he does the right thing again and doesn't jeopardize his party's identity with a disastrous grand coalition. We've seen what happens to social democratic parties in grand coalitions.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Right, sorry I was loose with my terms. I meant collaborating with the right in general is probably a bad idea for PS, so we seem to agree. Hopefully Costa does too.

[Antonio the Sixth]

When do polls close? What is turnout typically like?

Polls close at 19:00h in mainland Portugal and Madeira, and close at 20:00h in the Azores. Only by that time, will the networks be allowed to release exit polls.

Turnout is typically around the high 50s in mainland Portugal, but if you add the overseas votes, it drops to the mid 50s. This time, because the electoral law was changed for overseas voters, turnout rates could be low as 50%, because of the high number of registered voters overseas, 1,4 million. Nonetheless, in a few second the turnout rates until mid day will be available.

Wow, that is abysmal. I had no idea a Western European country could have such a low turnout for its main election (aside from Switzerland).

[Antonio the Sixth]

When do polls close? What is turnout typically like?

Polls close at 19:00h in mainland Portugal and Madeira, and close at 20:00h in the Azores. Only by that time, will the networks be allowed to release exit polls.

Turnout is typically around the high 50s in mainland Portugal, but if you add the overseas votes, it drops to the mid 50s. This time, because the electoral law was changed for overseas voters, turnout rates could be low as 50%, because of the high number of registered voters overseas, 1,4 million. Nonetheless, in a few second the turnout rates until mid day will be available.

Wow, that is abysmal. I had no idea a Western European country could have such a low turnout for its main election (aside from Switzerland).

This is because, like I said in posts above, of the automatic registration started in 2009. In 2005, there were 8,7 million voters in Portugal as a whole, but increased to 9,3 million in 2009. Many people that never changed their residence, and that left Portugal, became registered in their home towns, increasing the number of registered voters.

I see. I guess Portugal would be one of the countries in Europe most affected by emigration, so this might artificially depress turnout. Still, even taking that into account, it's still a really low figure. Italy still is in the low 70s despite plenty of emigration.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I mean, I take democratic participation seriously enough that even as a leftist this isn't self-evident to me, but point taken.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If these polls are right, PS should be expected to fall just short of an absolute majority, right?

[Antonio the Sixth]

The elections page has a really cool feature that allows you to see what the 2015 results were like in the areas that have reported so far. It seems that the votes we have so far are areas that overrepresent the right (PaF at 46% when it ended up at 37%) but don't necessarily underrepresent PS (32% in both this batch and the final results).

In other words, PS looks like it could end up at 38% or so, but PSD should go significantly down, and the left parties should go up, as the count progresses.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Interestingly, the PS total has been going down even as corresponding 2015 total has been going up. That suggest early-reporting areas have trended left while late-reporting areas have trended right. Does that suggest an urban-rural divide, or a North-South one? I guess we'll have to wait for the maps to find out.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Looks like PS will end up with 105-106 seats. Not enough to form a majority with PAN but a strong enough plurality that it shouldn't be too hard to cobble something together with BE if Costa is so inclined.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Rio criticised SIC's result projection last night, but his party still ended up in the range they had predicted for him, just in the upper range. I know it's business as usual for him, but it creates distrust in our fairly accurate media.

It's really ridiculous how this thing has been blown out of proportion. PS underperformed slightly and PSD overperformed slightly, big deal. The polls were basically right and PS still won handily. This isn't anything like UK Labour's comeback from the dead in 2017.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Fascinating that BE didn't win any parish despite placing third. I guess their vote is more urban and less regionally concentrated than CDU and CDS's?

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is a bad idea.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Is the opposition able to trigger a second election?

BE and CDU have no reason to do so. They'd probably be blamed for it and would lose even more ground.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is a bad idea.

Why? The alternative was a deal with BE only, which would strain relationships both on the left and with PSD.

This outcome was expected. In fact, that round of meetings with all leftwing parties that Costa held seem, IMO, quite ridiculous and a bit degrading. All had an air of theatre. PS would find it almost impossible to accommodate some of BE's demands like the revision of workers laws, minimum wage increases and spending increases, as Mário Centeno would block almost, if not all, of BE's main policy flags.

Yeah, heaven forbid a party with "Socialist" in its name actually enact pro-worker policies.

That tweet sounds about right. It seems that Costa always was a third-wayer who only made concessions to the left when that was his only road to power.