WORLD NEWS
Corruption scandals cast a shadow over Portugal’s
early general election and may favor populists
BY BARRY
HATTON
Updated
6:09 AM CET, February 25, 2024
LISBON,
Portugal (AP) — The official two-week campaign period before Portugal’s early
general election began on Sunday, with the country’s two moderate mainstream
parties once again expected to collect the most votes but with the expected
rise of a populist party potentially adding momentum to Europe’s drift to the
right.
The
center-left Socialist Party and center-right Social Democratic Party have
alternated in power for decades. But they are unsure of how much support they
might need from smaller rival parties for the parliamentary votes needed to
form a government after the March 10 vote.
Corruption
scandals have cast a shadow over the ballot. They have also fed public
disenchantment with the country’s political class as Portugal prepares to
celebrate 50 years of democracy, following the Carnation Revolution that
toppled a rightist dictatorship on April 25, 1974.
The
election is being held after a Socialist government collapsed last November
following a corruption investigation. That case brought a police search of
Prime Minister António Costa’s official residence and the arrest of his chief
of staff. Costa hasn’t been accused of any crime.
Also in
recent weeks, a Lisbon court decided that a former Socialist prime minister
should stand trial for corruption. Prosecutors allege that José Sócrates, prime
minister between 2005-2011, pocketed around 34 million euros ($36.7 million)
during his time in power from graft, fraud and money laundering.
The Social
Democratic Party has also been tainted by corruption allegations.
During the
recent weeks of unofficial campaigning, a graft investigation in Portugal’s
Madeira Islands triggered the resignation of two prominent Social Democrat
officials. The scandal erupted on the same day the Social Democratic Party
unveiled an anti-corruption billboard in Lisbon that said, “It can’t go on like
this.”
A housing
crisis, persistent levels of low pay and unreliable public health services are
other areas where the records of the two main parties are at issue.
Hot-button
topics that have driven political debate and encouraged populist parties
elsewhere in Europe, such as climate change, migration and religious
differences, have largely been absent in Portugal’s campaign.
A
five-year-old populist and nationalist party called Chega! (in English,
Enough!) has made the fight against corruption one of its political banners.
“Portugal needs cleaning out,” one of its billboards declares.
The party’s
leader, 41-year-old lawyer André Ventura, has been riding in third place in
opinion polls and could become a kingmaker if his political influence grows.
His party got just 1.3% of votes in a 2019 election, but jumped to 7.3% in
2022. It could collect more than double that this time, polls suggest, if a
protest vote materializes.
A key
question is whether the Social Democrats will end up needing the votes of
Chega! to make up a parliamentary majority after eight years in opposition.
The
Socialist Party could, as in the past, forge parliamentary alliances with the
Portuguese Communist Party or Left Bloc party to take power.
Socialist
leader Pedro Nuno Santos, his party’s candidate for prime minister, is a
lawmaker and a former minister for housing and infrastructure. Santos, 46, quit
the previous government under a cloud over his handling of bailed-out flag
carrier TAP Air Portugal and a dispute over the site of a new Lisbon airport.
Luís
Montenegro, the 51-year-old Social Democrat leader aiming to become prime
minister, has been a lawmaker for more than 20 years. He heads the Democratic
Alliance, a grouping with two smaller right-of-center parties formed for the
election.
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