 Portugal's pendulum swing could presage Euro shift rightwards
UNITED NATIONS — Portugal's voters have swung the political pendulum rightwards and have toppled the longtime ruling Socialist Party from power. The trend in Portugal, while reflecting domestic concerns over corruption and economic malaise, illustrates a perceptable shift in Euroland over ithe last year in which elections in Italy, Denmark, and Norway have produced conservative victors. With this year's two political Superbowl votes still pending — in France and Germany — political pundits are viewing the Portuguese election as perhaps a serious harbinger of things to come. Now the center right Social Democrats (PSD), the victors with 40% of the votes must nonetheless form what could be a fractious coalition with the feisty conservative Popular Party who received 9% of the tally. While Portugal's political scene has been decidely democratic for a generation, the vestiges of the still powerful Socialist Party and the died in the wool red communists still shadow the Parliament in Lisbon's ornate Sao Bento Palace. Nonetheless, it's economic issues, more than the old high octane political rhetoric which dominated the 1970's and early 1980's, which have been replaced by a much more mundane and may I say boring political debate. In a sense, given the hysteria and emotion of the 1970's when Lisbon was awash in all sorts of communist posters and grafitti, this is welcome. Portugal's ruling Socialist Party, heir of Mario Soares' once mighty Socialist movement in the 1970's has, as in most of Western Europe, sounded increasingly pro-business and enterprise oriented than anyone could have imagined. This is not a reaction to Tony Blair's "New Labour" but to simple reality — the Portuguese remain melancholy and hardworking realists. Yet even former President of the Republic Mario Soares, a grandee of Portugal's political scene, criticized the incumbent Socialist government and was reported by the Lisbon weekly Expresso, as "being unhappy with the decisions during the last few years of the governemnt." The Portuguese Communists (PCP), comfortably frozen in the Cold War, are no longer the powerhouse they once were. Even twenty years ago in legislative elections, the unapologically red PCP won 20% of the vote. Today their tally was 7% with 12 seats in Parliament. Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, forty-something conservative Prime Minister designate, remains a studious and not too media polished Premier in waiting. Described by London's Daily Telegraph as "Án admirer of Margaret Thatcher, he has promised to cut taxes and take a machete to Portugal's bloated public sector...His goal is to turn Portugal to a Latin "Tiger" economy along the lines of Ireland, with flexible larbor markets and light regulation." Durao Barroso served as Foreign Minister in a PSD government in the 1990's. Economically there's much good to build on. After Portugal's brief and near fatal folly of rabid revolutionary politics in the wake of the April 1974 leftist military coup, the country had bounced back surprisingly quickly by the 1980's. Shared government between the moderate left and right have not damaged the body politic and in fact have already made Portugal a serious destination for foreign investment and trade. Membership in the European Union (EU) has been a financial win-win for the Lisbon government. Sadly, there has been some slipping back in the past years of Socialist parliamentary power, as slipshod administration, and unaffordable mega projects became a hallmark. But this is hardly anything irreversable. Portugal in recent years has seen an increase in illegal immigration, crime, and drugs — issues simply not part of the mix not too long ago. Portugal's lesson has less to do with vaunted political trends as the bottom line of politics — the ruling Socialists promised, taxed, and squandered through corruption and inefficiency. When Prime Minister Antonio Guterres resigned abrubtly after local election setbacks, it appeared that the prize was in reach for the conservatives. In April and September both France and Germany respectively will see what I call the Euro Titan contests. Both countries remain key powers and EU pillars. France will soon hold the rematch for the Presidency, the current small "c" conservative President Jacques Chirac, facing Socailist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. In Germany Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the garrulous left leaning Socialist, will oppose the Christian Democrat conservative Edmund Stoiber. Both France and Germany are the Euro bellweather elections as these two powers will determine the future of the European Union. Portugal may be following a trend. This promises to be an interesting year.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
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