The Portuguese elections on February 20 were called as a result of an unprecedented situation - the resignation of a government with a parlia mentary majority.
That government was a coalition of two right wing parties, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Popular Party (PP) with respectively 42 per cent and 9 per cent at the General Election in?.
This time round is the first time ever in Portuguese history that the Socialist Party has an absolute majority with an increase of 0.5 million votes, many of them from people who had previously abstained.
The Left Bloc won more than 6 percent of the vote and increased its number of deputies to eight. The Portuguese Communist Party had at the last elections fallen to 7 per cent - the worst result ever - and this time only increased by 0.5 per cent. This stopped the rot but no more and further splits in the Party are developing.
The European Elections in June had seen a punishing of the parties in power, reducing their share of the vote to 1/3 with the left taking 2/3. So from this point on the government was extremely weak Prime Minister Durao Barroso fled to become the President of the European Commission. The President of the Republic, Jorge Sampaio accepted his replacement though many called for immediate Eventually these were conceded to.
The driving force behind this change is the increase in unemployment - the most severe in the European Union -between 9-10 per cent with 30 per cent who are either unemployed or precarious. 2/3 of the unemployed have as an alternative no social security.
As a result of all this the President dissolved parliament.
The results for the Bloc were very positive with deputies elected for the first time in the industrial area to
the south of Lisbon - Setubal as well as increases in Lisbon and Porto. This has always been a strong base for the bloc and the margin by which we weren't elected last time was small. Setubal is the
During the home to the biggest campaign, which factory in the coun
try - a Volkwagen was hard fought,
factory, which prothe Bloc duces 10 per cent of presented itself the export capacity
of the country and where the Bloc is
for change. strongly organised.
During the three years of the right wing government the Bloco has become very well known. During the campaign, which was hard fought, the Bloc presented itself as an alternative for change.
"We presented ourselves as having a programme for government while making it clear that we would not enter a Socialist Party government" said Francisco Louca, one of the Bloc's spokespeople and deputy for Lisbon. He continued
"In this we differentiated ourselves from the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), who have a sectarian and defensive attitude to the Socialist Party, but at the same time are eager to be part of the government".
The right wing attacked the Bloc very explicitly, Louca Bloco explained, saying that the danger was, that the Bloc "might impose its policies on the right wing".
Campaigning under the slogan "the trustworthy left" the Bloc put forward ten priorities for the first 100 days in government, detailing the measures it would take, focusing on questions such as employment abortion and social security. Most of the campaigning was on the SUCCO.
Many new people want to join the Bloc, which is currently 3000 members strong as a result of the campaign.