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Portugal Peasants
Peasants were long the neglected and forgotten people
of
Portuguese politics. Although the largest group
numerically, they
were the weakest politically. Nonparticipation was
encouraged by
Salazar's strategy of keeping the peasants illiterate and
apathetic.
The peasants comprised a variety of groups. A basic
distinction exists between the conservative peasants of
the north
who own their small plots of land, and the peasants of the
south
who have no land, live under conditions of tenancy, and
have been
receptive to the appeals of radical political groups. The
PCP,
for example, had quietly organized southern peasants under
its
banner even during the Salazar era. During and after the
Revolution of 1974, the south, especially the Alentejo,
was a
hotbed of land seizures, radical political action, and
strong
voting preferences for the PCP.
Since the revolution, however, both the PS and the PSD
have
made electoral inroads into what were PCP strongholds in
the
south. The rural areas were once again to some degree depoliticized , although the countryside would never return
to the
quiescence of decades past, despite the large numbers of
farmers
and agrarian laborers who migrated to urban areas or went
abroad.
Data as of January 1993
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