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Portugal Consolidation of Democracy
The first elections for the new parliament, the
Assembly of
the Republic, were won by the PS. It took 36.7 percent of
the
vote, compared with the 25.2 percent for the PDP, 16.7
percent
for the CDS, and 15.2 percent for the PCP. Elections for
the
presidency were held in June and won easily by General
Eanes, who
enjoyed the backing of parties to the right of the
communists,
the PS, the PPD, and the CDS.
Although the PS did not have a majority in the Assembly
of
the Republic, Eanes allowed it to form the first
constitutional
government with Soares as prime minister. It governed from
July
23, 1976, to January 30, 1978. A second government, formed
from a
coalition with the CDS, lasted from January to August of
1978 and
was also led by Soares. The PS governments faced enormous
economic and social problems such as runaway inflation,
high
unemployment, falling wages, and an enormous influx of
Portuguese
settlers from Africa. Failure to fix the economy, even
after
adopting a painful austerity program imposed by the
International
Monetary Fund
(IMF--see Glossary),
ultimately forced the
PS to
relinquish power. However, the PS could be seen as having
been
successful in that it governed Portugal democratically for
two
years and helped thereby to consolidate the new political
system.
After the collapse of the PS-CDS coalition government in
July
1978, President Eanes formed a number of caretaker
governments in
the hope that they would rule until the parliamentary
elections
mandated by the constitution could be held in 1980. There
were,
therefore, three short-lived governments appointed by
President
Eanes. These were led by Prime Minister Alfred Nobre da
Costa
from August 28, to November 21, 1978; Carlos Mota Pinto
from
November 21, 1978, to July 31, 1979; and Maria de Lourdes
Pintasilgo (Portugal's first woman prime minister) from
July 31,
1979, to January 3, 1980.
The weakness of these governments and the failure of
the PS
and the PPD, now renamed the Social Democrat Party
(Partido
Social Democráta--PSD), to form a coalition government
forced
President Eanes to call for interim elections to be held
in
December 1979. Francisco Sá Carneiro, the dynamic leader
of the
PSD and a fierce personal rival of Soares, put together a
coalition of his own PSD along with the CDS, the Popular
Monarchist Party (Partido Popular Monárquico--PPM), and
another
small party to form the Democratic Alliance (Aliança
Democrática-
-AD). The AD downplayed its intentions to revise the
constitution
to reverse the nationalizations and land seizures of the
mid-
1970s and advocated a moderate economic policy. The
coalition won
45.2 percent of the vote in the elections, or 128 seats,
for a
majority of 3 in the 250-seat assembly. The PS, which had
also
formed an electoral coalition with several small left-wing
groups, suffered a drubbing and won only 27.4 percent, a
large
drop compared with 1976 results. The PCP, in coalition
with
another left-wing party, gained slightly.
Sá Carneiro became prime minister in January 1980, and
the
tenor of parliamentary politics moved to the right as the
government attempted to undo some of the revolution's
radical
reforms. The powers conferred on the presidency by the
constitution of 1976 enabled President Eanes to block the
AD's
centrist economic policies. For this reason, the AD
concentrated
on winning enough seats in the October 1980 elections to
reach a
two-thirds majority to effect constitutional change and on
electing someone other than Eanes in the presidential
elections
of December 1980.
Portuguese voters approved of the movement to the
right, and
in the parliamentary elections the AD coalition increased
the
number of its seats to 134, while the PS held steady at 74
seats
and the PCP lost 6 seats for a total of 41. The AD's win
was not
complete, however, because President Eanes was easily
reelected
in December. In contrast to the election of 1976, when
Eanes was
supported by the PS and parties to its right, he was
backed in
1980 by the PS, the PCP, and other left-wing parties.
Voters
admired Eanes for his integrity and obvious devotion to
democracy. His election, however, made constitutional
change less
certain because the AD did not have by itself the required
two-
thirds majority. The AD also suffered a serious loss when
its
dynamic leader, Sá Carneiro, died in a plane crash just
two days
before the presidential election. His successor was
Franciso
Pinto Balsemão, the founder and editor of the
Expresso newspaper.
The AD coalition remained in power until mid-1983,
forming
two governments with Balsemão as prime minister. In
combination
with the PS, which also desired fundamental changes in the
political system, the AD was able to revise the
constitution.
Amendments were passed that enhanced the power of the
prime
minister and the Assembly of the Republic at the expense
of the
president and the military
(see Constitutional Development
, this
ch.). The revised constitution was promulgated in
September 1982.
Although the AD government had achieved its main
objective of
amending the constitution, the country's economic problems
worsened, and the coalition gradually lost popular
support.
Balsemão also tired of the constant political skirmishing
needed
to hold the AD together and resigned in December 1982.
Unable to
choose a successor, the AD broke apart. Parliamentary
elections
in April 1983 gave the PS a stunning victory that
increased its
parliamentary seats to 101. After long negotiations, the
PS
joined with the PSD to form a governing coalition, the
Central
Bloc (Bloco Central), with Soares as prime minister.
The Central Bloc government was fragile from its
beginning
and lasted only two years. Faced with serious and
worsening
economic problems, the government had to adopt an
unpopular
austerity policy. Administrative and personality
difficulties
made relations within the government tense and resulted in
bitter
parliamentary maneuvers. Overshadowing these difficulties
was the
upcoming presidential election in early 1986. Soares made
clear
his ambition to succeed Eanes, who, according to the
constitution, was not allowed to seek a third consecutive
term. A
split within the PSD over its presidential candidate ended
the
coalition government in June 1985.
In new assembly elections held in October 1985, the PS,
blamed by the public for the country's severe economic
problems,
such as a 10 percent fall in wages since 1983, suffered
serious
losses and lost almost half its seats in the Assembly of
the
Republic. The PCP's electoral coalition lost six seats;
the PSD
won thirteen more seats because of new leadership; and the
CDS
lost almost a third of its seats. The big winner was a
party
formed by supporters of President Eanes, the Party of
Democratic
Renovation Party (Partido Renovador Democrático--PRD),
which,
although only months old, won nearly 18 percent of the
vote and
forty-five seats. The party's victory stemmed from the
high
regard Portuguese voters had for President Eanes.
No party emerged from the October 1985 elections with
anything even close to an absolute majority. Hence, the
1985-87
period was unstable politically. The new head of the PSD,
economist Aníbal Cavaco Silva, as prime minister headed a
minority PSD government that managed to survive for only
seventeen months. Its success was attributed partly to
support
from the PRD, which as a young party wished to establish
itself,
although it was a motion of censure presented by this
party in
the spring of 1987 that eventually brought the government
down.
Cavaco Silva also benefited from the internal dissension
of other
parties.
The presidential election of 1986 did not yield a
winner in
the first round. The candidate of the CDS and the PSD,
Diogo
Freitas do Amaral, won 46.3 percent of the vote compared
with
25.4 percent for Mário Soares. Freitas do Amaral, the
candidate
of a united right, profited from the left's mounting of
three
candidates. In the two-candidate runoff election in
mid-February,
Soares won with 51.3 percent of the vote, getting the
support of
most left-wing voters. The PCP supported him as the lesser
of two
evils, even though Soares repeatedly reminded voters that
he,
perhaps more than anyone else, had prevented the
communists from
coming to power in the mid-1970s.
Cavaco Silva came to have full control of his party,
the PSD.
As prime minister, he governed boldly and pushed, through
his
influence in the parliament, for a liberalization of the
economy.
He was fortunate in that external economic trends and the
infusion of funds from the European Community
(EC--see Glossary)
after Portugal became a member in 1986 enlivened the
country's
economy and began to bring an unaccustomed prosperity to
Portuguese wage earners. Confident therefore that his
party could
win in parliamentary elections, Cavaco Silva maneuvered
his
political opponents into passing a vote of censure against
his
government in April 1987. Instead of asking for a new
government
composed of a variety of parties on the left, President
Soares
called for elections in July.
Cavaco Silva had judged the political situation
correctly.
The PSD won just over 50 percent of the vote, which gave
it an
absolute majority in the parliament, the first
single-party
majority since the restoration of democracy in 1974. The
strong
mandate would enable Cavaco Silva to put forward a more
clearly
defined program and perhaps govern more effectively than
his
predecessors. The emergence of a single-party government
supported by a parliamentary majority was for many
observers the
coming of age of Portuguese democracy.
Data as of January 1993
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