Portugal's politics and elections

[Zanas]

I wouldn't have guessed that both PSD and CDS had roughly equal support through all age groups.

[Mike88]

I wouldn't have guessed that both PSD and CDS had roughly equal support through all age groups.

They were always very stable actually. Even after looking to some polls during the previous government term, both parties had roughly equal support among all ages although they were slightly more popular among youth voters than older voters because of pension cuts.

Poll from Aximage on Euthanasia:

53.1% In favour
21.1% Against
13.3% Wouldn't vote
12.5% Undecided

By party

    PSD           PS         CDS           BE         CDU        OTH  
37.6%     56.7%     32.7%     56.2%     53.9%     61.8% In favour
31.6%     19.3%     38.8%       9.1%     16.1%     22.7% Against
17.3%     14.1%     10.3%       5.9%       1.5%       3.3% Wouldn't vote
13.4%       9.9%     18.2%     28.8%     28.5%     12.3% Undecided

Conducted between 4 and 6 March 2017. Polled 608 voters. MoE of 4.00%

Link.

Also, a comic relief moment...

This is where the BE decided to put their candidate's poster for Lisbon:

Priceless!  

[Mike88]

Something is going wrong in Porto...

A few days ago, a MEP from the PS, Manuel dos Santos, told a newspaper that Rui Moreira, mayor of Porto, and António Costa have a secret deal between them to make Manuel Pizarro, member of the PS-Porto and former candidate in 2013, the number 2 in the lists to the fall elections and that Rui Moreira has been promissed a future cabinet job or the number one spot in the PS lists to EU elections in 2019. Therefore, this would make Manuel Pizarro mayor of Porto.

And at the same time, the local elections coordinator from the PS, Ana Catarina Mendes, said to Expresso newspaper that she's confident the PS will have a "strong representation" in the lists in Porto.

Rui Moreira didn't like what both sides were saying and said that there will be no "jobs for the boys" and that the composition of the lists in Porto will be decided by him and only him, and that he will serve a full second term if he's reelected. All of this happens after the PSD candidate accused Rui Moreira and Porto city hall of being controlled by the Socialists.

[Mike88]

In Lisbon, Assunção Cristas gained the support of MPT and PPM... and the PSD didn't like their reasons.

The race for Lisbon mayor continues with a sour mood between PSD and CDS. Now, MPT and PPM decided to break from the PSD and support Assunção Cristas. But the reasons for which they decided to break are creating some uneasiness in the PSD. The main reason the PPM decided to support CDS is because the PSD candidate, Teresa Leal Coelho, supported gay marriage and adoption. The PSD leader in Lisbon Assembly, Sérgio Azevedo, reacted strongly saying he also voted beside Ms. Leal Coelho and that he fought for "a society of all and for all regardless of beliefs, races, ideologies and options."

There are no public polls right now for Lisbon, but private polling from the parties shows the PS in the lead but with the absolute majority uncertain. These polls also show the PSD and CDS fighting for second place.

[Mike88]

Update on the local elections:

In Covilhã, Castelo Branco district, former PSD mayor Carlos Pinto, announced he will run as an independent for mayor.



Mr. Carlos Pinto was a very popular mayor in Covilhã between 1997 and 2013, giving the PSD victories near to 60% of the vote but lately he has become very critical of Passos Coelho leadership and now he will ran against his own party candidate. The PS is now in trouble in Covilhã and the race will be, with small doubt, between Carlos Pinto and the incumbent PS mayor Vitor Pereira. The PSD candidate, poor guy, doesn't have a chance.

In Ponte de Lima, Viana do Castelo district, the CDS has splitted in two. The current mayor, Victor Mendes (CDS), will run for a second term but Abel Baptista, former deputy mayor of Ponte de Lima and CDS MP from Viana district, will run as an independent and has won the support of the Socialist Party. Ponte de Lima is a CDS bastion in local elections but this split in the party could help the PSD candidate chances. If the PSD wins this, it would be a huge shock. Let's see.

And in Loures, football has entered the campaign. The PSD/CDS candidate, André Ventura, has accused the FC Porto of electoral interference and filled a complain against the FC Porto communications director.



André Ventutra, a sport commentator and a huge fan of Benfica, accused Francisco J. Marques, Porto's communications director, of interference because he said in a TV program that Mr. Ventura candidacy is wrong, bad for Porto's supporters in Loures and that they shouldn't support this political project. What impact might this have? Well, in the past many local elections had clashes between football clubs and political parties but at the end of the day there weren't many evidences that it had an impact in terms of votes. A race to watch in Loures.

Also, for anyone interested, "Sábado" magazine has a very good report on the many splits in the PS, PSD and CDS across the country. Here's the link.

[Mike88]

In the last few weeks i've been working on a little project of my own about the 2017 local elections. Because right now there are few polls and projections, i decided to make one of may own just for fun. It's very early, i know... the election is only in October... but it think it's interesting.

So, in the last few weeks i've been seeing the vote trends of the 308 municipalities and also reading some local newspapers online to see what's going on in the smaller cities, and with all of that combined i created an early projection for the fall local elections.

April 2017 - Projection for the October 1st local elections

Note: The projection has a big range between the highest and lowest for the parties because in many cities it's very difficult to project or to see a trend.

Also for this projection, i identified safe, leaning and tossup municipalities. 61% of the 308 municipalities can be considered as "safe". By party they are:
81 PS
74 PSD
26 CDU
  7 Independent

76 municipalities are leaning for one party or other because they have a trend or some event making the race swing to a certain way:
39 PS
26 PSD
  4 CDU
  4 CDS
  3 Independent

Adding to this, 17 municipalities are very, very competitive but are more likely, in my reading, to fall for one side than the other due to several reasons like past voting trends.
11 PSD
  6 PS

And finally, i labeled 27 municipalities as tossups. A few of them are: Beja, Barcelos, Covilhã, Coimbra, Santarém, Tomar, Montijo, Ponte de Lima and Santa Cruz. The other tossup cities are much more smaller cities, but they could have an impact in the final score of the PS and PSD.

In summary, in my opinion, things don't look that bad for the PSD although they have a lot to catch up, and the PS shouldn't be so cocky and if they want to maintain their status as the largest local party they will need to fight hard.

Hope you enjoy! PS: Feel free to make your own prediction just for fun.

[Mike88]

And now, maps.

This map shows the current status of each municipality after my analysis. They are divided between "Safe", "Leaning", "Slightly" and "Toss-up".


The PS, PSD and CDU will hold on to their traditional bastions. The CDU, in my opinion, will continue to dominate the Setúbal peninsula plus large parts in Central and South Alentejo. The PSD will maintain their control in the "very orange" parts of Aveiro, Leiria and Viseu plus they could increase their territories in Braga District. The PS will hold on to many cities scattered across the country, and will hold on to big cities like Lisbon, Gaia, Castelo Branco and Gondomar. Independent movements will continue to cement their importance in local government. Rui Moreira, mayor of Porto, is poised to hold on to Porto city.

But both PS and PSD could make some gains. Ourém, Sintra and Torres Vedras could go the PSD while Paredes and Vila Verde are trending heavily to the PS. Also, the PS has a slight chance of holding on to Vila Real and they have an opportunity to strip Faro city from the PSD. On the other hand, the PSD has an opportunity to turn Vila do Bispo (Algarve) and Angra do Heroísmo (Azores) orange.

And then are the Toss-up municipalities. A total of 27 could decide if the PS or PSD win the local elections. There are big cities in play like Barcelos, Coimbra, Santarém, Beja, Covilhã and Ponte de Lima. The last one, a CDS bastion, can be a huge blow for the CDS leader Assunção Cristas as the local CDS party in split in two candidates and that could give a chance to the PSD to win this city.

------

Also, news updates about the elections:

The president of the local PSD party in Lisbon, Mauro Xavier, has resigned. Mauro Xavier resigns after the controversial choice of the PSD candidate for Lisbon. Mauro Xavier says that after the choice of Terese Leal Coelho as candidate, he doesn't have the political conditions to continue.

Fernando Seara, 2013 PSD candidate for Lisbon, also resigned from the PSD-Lisbon but in his case it may be about the local elections in Odivelas, Lisbon suburb, where there's rumours that Fernando Seara will be the PSD candidate for that city.

[Mike88]

PSD caucus leader, Luís Montenegro, wants Portugal to have the same electoral system Greece has.

In a conference held on the International Club of Portugal in Lisbon, Luís Montenegro defended that there should be a more closer bond between voters and elected officials adding also that he believes that who wins elections should govern and to prevent what happened in 2015, the party or political force with most votes should get a bonus like in Greece.

If Portugal had the same electoral system as Greece, but in our case with a bonus of 30 MPs, the 2015 election results would be like this:

38.6% 123 PSD/CDS Absolute Majority
32.3%   74 PS
10.2%   18 BE
  8.3%   14 CDU
  1.4%     0 PAN
  0.4%     1 NC
  8.8%     0 Others/Invalid

An absolute majority for the PSD/CDS coalition rather than the current PS/BE/CDU majority.

Simulation from here.

Although Luís Montenegro defends this, the official line of the PSD on electoral reform is to reduce the total number of MP's to 180 and the introduction of Preferential vote.

[Mike88]

Miguel Relvas is back. The ill-fated former minister, which makes part of the long list of portuguese politicians that manipulated their college degrees, wants the PSD to discuss a future implementation of primary elections to elect the President of the party and other positions in the party. 


Miguel Relvas

Miguel Relvas, which in the past was one of Passos Coelho most strongest supporters but now a fierce critic of him, return to the political life was received with some rolling eyes. Many don't know what he wants or why he is speaking. But some say he's back to push for a candidacy of Luís Montenegro, leader of the PSD caucus, for president of the party. But Luís Montenegro has already said he is against primaries in the party, adding that the last example of primaries in a party in Portugal, the PS's primary in 2014, was a fiasco because António Costa lost the 2015 elections.

At the moment there's only one main challenger to Passos Coelho and it is Rui Rio, former mayor of Porto. Luís Montenegro has said over and over again that he will not run, in any circumstance, against Passos Coelho.


Rui Rio and Passos Coelho

The result of the 2017 local elections will be defining for the PSD. If the PSD makes strong gains, which should not be set aside like i explained in the posts above in my 1st 2017 local election prediction, Passos Coelho would be reinforced and Rui Rio would have a near 0% chance of defeating him. But if it happens the opposite, there will be a big fight for the PSD leadership. In this scenario Rui Rio has the upper hand but don't underestimate Passos Coelho.

Stay tuned.

[Mike88]

Fantastic parody of the political situation right now in Portugal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUrf5p9Qsfw

From RTP1 program "Donos Disto Tudo"

Poor BE and PCP.... 

[Mike88]

Dear God!! Isaltino Morais leads in Oeiras

27.6% Isaltino Morais
22.5% Paulo Vistas (Inc)
20.0% PS
10.1% PSD
  6.9% CDU
  3.3% BE
  2.1% CDS
  7.5% Others/Invalid

From Eurosondagem. Conducted between 4 and 6 April. Polled 1,177 voters.

[Mike88]

Local officials and residents occupy Caixa Geral de Depósitos bank agency in Almeida, Guarda District.


Protests inside the bank agency. Source: JN

Local residents and officials have occupied today the installations of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos bank in Almeida, Guarda District. A total of 100 people plus some local politicians, including the deputy mayor, are protesting against the closure of the public bank agency.

This policy of the new administration of bank is needed because the bank has huge impairments plus low profits so cuts need to happen. But this could hurt the PS in the fall elections particularly in small villages in the countryside. Almeida is a strong PSD area so nothing will happen here but in others areas across the country, the PS can be in trouble.

Also, the government is going to give a day off to public employees on May 12 to see the Pope.
This is ridiculous, it's not the first time it happens but still, it's ridiculous. May 12 is a Friday and the Pope will only be in Portugal for less than 24 hours...

[Mike88]

Crosstabs of the Eurosondagem poll from this month, April 2017.



From here.

[Mike88]

Update on the political events:

The Caixagate is back again as the 2nd inquiry committee about the affair started today. The former, and ill-fated, president of the Caixa bank, António Domingues, testified before MP's but he didn't said nothing new. Mr Domingues once again said that he thought the government had agreed to his conditions because they didn't objected to it, and that the pressure for him to release his tax returns made the government to make an U-turn on what they had agreed with him.


Mário Centeno and António Domingues

The finance minister, Mário Centeno, is one of the next to be interrogated by Parliament. Although the possibility of seeing the real emails and text messages between the finance minister and Mr. Domingues is close to 0%, because the PS/BE/CDU majority would block it, the fact that this affair is back in the headlines is not good for the government.

Also, today, the debt report commissioned by the government to a work group formed by economists of the PS and BE was released today... but it may be thrown into the garbage by the government. First the report. The report has a lot of proposals to reduce the debt like extending the time to pay the EU back to 60 years or to turn the debt to the bank of Portugal perpetual, but the government is not going to sign or be binding to the document.


Portugal's public debt increased 1.4% in 2016 to 130.4%.

Pundits are saying this report is interesting but that it is a "huge U-turn" in the beliefs of the BE and that one of the reasons the government isn't going to sign the report is because they are afraid of the reaction of the markets as the ECB debt buying program could be coming to a close.

Adding to this, the PCP says this report is weak and a new one should be form to renegotiate unilaterally the debt. But that's not going to happen.

[Mike88]

The Ovibeja, one of Portugal's main agriculture fair, began yesterday and, as normal, all politicians went there to talk with farmers plus taking selfies with people and see some animals. Until now, the leaders of PSD, PS, CDU and CDS have visited while the President of the Republic will visit the site later today.

There was some time left for some political argumentation. Passos Coelho said the drop of unemployment to 9.9%, the first since mid 2009, was due to his labour reforms and not the current government actions adding also that the PS government, after the debt report was released, wants to "pick up" the Bank of Portugal reserves to reduce the deficit. The Prime Minister responded to these accusations also in the Ovibeja site saying that the accusation doesn't deserve any comments.

And here are some photos of the politicians on the Ovibeja site:

Passos Coelho, PSD leader, seeing the animals at the place.


Time for some selfies...


António Costa, PM, seeing a sheep.


António Costa cutting and eating some ham.


Jerónimo de Sousa, PCP leader, seeing the irrigation project of the Alqueva dam.

Photos from here.

[Mike88]

Luís Marques Mendes: The PS will win the local elections but the PSD will improve.

Luís Marques Mendes, former PSD leader and currently one of Portugal's leading political pundits and commentator, said in his weekly slot on SIC TV that the PS will win the local elections but the PSD will see improvements in comparison with 2013.

This isn't news to anybody. Like i explained in my 1st prediction above, the PS is the highly favourite to win but don't underestimate the PSD. The PS, and António Costa, need a strong victory in the local elections to cement their position in government and to start the race for the 2019 (or 2018) general elections in the pole position. But that's not guarantee and the PS could suffer big losses in the fall elections and that's not good for them. Also, the PSD is very unlikely, almost impossible, to overtake the PS in terms of cities but the gains for them could be overwhelming. We could a see a repeated scenario of what happened in 1982 and 1997. In these both midterm local elections, the governing party won the election but the gains for the opposition were so big that the victory tasted like defeat.

In summary, the PS is on track to win the elections but they could have a "pirro's victory" on a time they needed a strong showing of support. The PSD can surprise in many places and damage the goals of António Costa. And the CDU? A bad score for them could mean an end of their support of the PS, although in my prediction i say that the CDU will maintain pretty much their 2013 score.

A lot to happen in the next few months here.

[Mike88]

Cascais's PCP councilman arrested after a protest.

Clemente Alves, councilman of the PCP in Cascais city hall, was arrested by the police after a protest against the construction of a parking space in São João do Estoril, a parish in Cascais. According to the police, the councilman didn't respect the police orders of abandoning the place plus he mistreated a policeman.


The moment the councilman was arrested. Source: Observador

The councilman, on the other hand, has said to the press he didn't offer any resistance to the police and even identified himself as the PCP councillor but the police officer didn't care. Clemente is also the PCP candidate for Mayor of Cascais which is currently held by the PSD/CDS coalition. In fact the PSD/CDS coalition reacted to this arrest saying they are not surprised because the PCP councilman has a long history of bad behavior. The spokesperson of the coalition even said that once he broke chairs in a city hall meeting.

[Mike88]

First posters of the 2017 elections in Oeiras:

Isaltino Morais (Independent)

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Joaquim Raposo (PS)

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Oeiras 20/30?? What the...??

[Mike88]

Socialist MP "suggests a couple of slaps in the face" to a political commentator who compared António Costa with Donald Trump.

João Marques de Almeida, political commentator in Observador newspaper, wrote an opinion piece last sunday in which he laid out the similarities between António Costa and Donald Trump. In the piece, he writes that both have been in fights with the judicial system, Costa recently attacked the Constitutional Court, both have a bad relationship with the banking regulators, Trump has a bumpy relationship with the Federal Reserve while Costa, and the PS, have made several statements where pundits say they are attacking the independence of the Bank of Portugal. He also adds that like Trump, who disregards the Democratic Party opposition, António Costa also ignores the opposition as he constantly refuses to answer Pedro Passos Coelho questions in Parliament.

Of course this article wasn't well received in the PS and Ascenso Simões, PS MP, went to twitter suggesting the commentator should receive a couple of slaps in the face. Later, to Sábado magazine, the MP said he wouldn't retract his statements, adding that if João Marques de Almeida knew how to swordplay, he would challenged him to a duel, plus he said that the time we live in does not allow the elevation of rhetoric and that the public debate isn't for namby-pambies.

João Marques de Almeida also reacted to Ascenso Simões saying he doesn't care what the MP said and that he burst into laughter when he read his reaction.

God....

[Mike88]

Rui Moreira, mayor of Porto, will reevaluate tonight if he still wants the support of the PS

The mood between the PS and Rui Moreira is becoming worse by the day. Now, Rui Moreira and his movement, "O meu partido é o Porto" will reevaluate if they still want the support of the PS. All of this happens after the chief election strategist of the PS, Ana Catarina Mendes, said that a victory of Rui Moreira will be a victory for the PS.

And, of course, the PSD is already using this to attack Rui Moreira:

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Let's wait and see how this unfolds.

[Mike88]

Huge political earthquake in Porto:

Rui Moreira refuses the support of the PS.


Rui Moreira (right) and Manuel Pizarro (next to Moreira), PS councilman.

The fallout after the interview of the PS chief election strategist, Ana Catarina Martins, created a huge problem for the Socialists. After she labeled a possible Rui Moreira victory in Porto as also a PS victory, the mayor of Porto and his team was furious and last night decided they will not accept the support of the PS. And the big consequence of this is that the PS could be out of the lists in Porto.

The PS is surprised and shocked by this decision and they will assemble tonight to decide how to move forward.

The PS, right now, has no candidate for Porto and if they don't act fast they could be out of Porto city hall for the first time ever.

[Mike88]

Well, what a mess has unfolded in Porto...

Rui Moreira gave an interview on SIC TV earlier tonight where he explained the reasons to refuse the support of the PS for his reelection. In the interview he said that the PS had "another kind of support in mind" in which they would be part of the lists and Moreira never considered that. He also gave a big complement to the PS councilman, and deputy mayor, Manuel Pizarro and said he would invite him to the lists but, and this is important, the list cannot have people affiliated with any party.

So basically, he's saying: "Mr Pizarro, it's either me or your party." Ouch!

But twitter is on fire with this mess and there are already rumours that the PS will present their own candidacy for Porto. But who will be the candidate? That's the million dollar question right now.

[Mike88]

That was fast...

The candidate of the PS for Porto city mayor will be... Manuel Pizarro, the man Rui Moreira so well complemented last night and said he would invite him to the lists.


Manuel Pizarro.

Also, António Costa is apparently angry with Rui Moreira for not wanting to negotiate a formal coalition and to drag the PS into a huge mess.

I'm curious to see a poll from Porto. In 2013 the results were:

39.2% Rui Moreira
22.7% PS
21.1% PSD
  7.4% CDU
  3.6% BE

Will this candidacy of the PS hurt Moreira or the PSD, pushing them again to 3rd place like in 2013? A lot a stuff still to happen.

[VPH]

Comparing Costa to Trump strikes me as comical lol.

[Mike88]

Comparing Costa to Trump strikes me as comical lol.

The article is completely exaggerated, obviously. António Costa has many flaws like not accepting well criticism or uncomfortable questions or for living in a somewhat fairyland, but he's no Trump, thank God!!

In other news, one related to the political earthquake in Porto, today both major parties held major events. The PSD celebrated the party's 43th birthday with a rally in Pombal.


PSD rally in Pombal.

The PS held today their Local election convention but it was completely overshadowed by the the political debacle in Porto. Plus, the convention date was not well received by many in the party. In many cities the PS is still choosing candidates and the convention was the place to announce all candidates which didn't happen.


PS convention: António Costa (left) with Manuel Pizarro (right).

Nonetheless, the convention confirmed the nomination of Manuel Pizarro as the candidate for Porto mayor. The mayoral race in Porto just became a another race to watch.