Confusion confronts new government

 Portugal’s head of state has given the green light to Pedro Passos Coelho and his centre-right Forward Portugal (PaF) coalition to follow up on their first term in office and form a new government. But that doesn't mean the inconclusive outcome of the general election is all sorted. Far from it.

President Aníbal Cavaco Silva’s decision to deny an unprecedented left-wing alliance the opportunity to govern has gone down well in Brussels and across conservative Europe, but it has caused a commotion at home.

The October 4 election produced no clear winner and this  presented the largely ceremonial head of state with stark options. Although a former Social Democrat leader himself, Cavaco Silva was required by the constitution to fairly judge which group was best positioned to lead the country.

After consulting with all the political parties and in line with tradition, on Thursday evening the president nominated the group with the most electoral votes. He gave them ten days to present a four-year programme for approval by parliament.

Passos Coelho hopes to be able to count on support from any centre-left Socialists (PS) unhappy about the notion of an alliance with the radical Far Left (BE) and the hard-line Communist parties (PCP).

Should Passos Coelho fail to obtain a parliamentary vote of confidence for his programme for the next four years, the president will then be expected to ask the broad left to try to form a government.

Passos Coelho has told the president of the steps he would take to continue sound pro-European governance by the PaF coalition despite failing to get an absolute majority on October 4.

Catarina Martins, spokesperson for the anti-establishment Left Block, which has much in common with Greece’s Syriza and Spain’s Podemos, has said the BE will have the PCP’s support in tabling a motion rejecting the centre-right confidence vote in parliament in the days ahead.

It is thought the Socialists may close ranks and do the same, although more moderate members of the PS are said to be increasingly uneasy about “the self-defeating and reckless” direction in which their leader may be taking them.

Socialist leader António Costa, whose party came second in the election, decided against striking any deal with the incumbent centre-right, but managed to garnered support from the Left Bloc and the Communists who finished third and fourth in the election.

Because of historic feuding, it seemed improbably before and even immediately after the vote counting that the country could end up with a triple left-wing alliance. But it has become a possibility.

The prospect of a sudden shift from a government that co-operated closely with international lenders, to one with anti-austerity and anti-EU leanings, sparked concern among conservative governments and fiscal markets in the eurozone.

During the immediate post-election period this month, Costa, whose personal position seemed in doubt after the disappointing PS election result, reasoned that the centre-right option would not be viable and would simply “prolong the uncertainty” in the country. He has now criticised the president for creating a “useless political crisis.”

The Left Bloc's Catarina Martins said another centre-right government would be “a waste of time” as it could not expect to serve for long. She has chastised the president for “creating instability” and acting like “a cult leader.”

Jerónimo de Sousa, leader of the Communists, maintained that a majority left-wing government was feasible though it had long been spurned by many Socialists. He criticised Cavaco Silva for his “confrontational stance and disregard for the constitution.”

Paulo Portas, the incumbent deputy prime minister and leader of the rightist CDS-People's Party, said it was “absolutely extraordinary that a political leader fighting for his survival” (Costa) could even consider overriding “the vote of the people,” albeit it a minority vote.

Amid the domestic slanging, EU officials have threatened to take action against Portugal for not presenting its draft 2016 budget by the 15 October deadline. Portugal is still running one of the highest budget deficits in the eurozone.

Thursday’s announcement by President Cavaco Silva did not banish international fears that further weeks of uncertainty could harm Portugal's economic recovery more than a year after it exited the strict terms of its €78bn international bailout.

On the same day as President Cavaco Silva’s new government announcement, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, expressed hope that Passos Coelho would be successful, but also spoke of her concern that upcoming elections in Spain and Ireland could see a swing to anti-austerity forces.

“We face difficult situations in Ireland, Spain and Portugal,” she told a meeting of the centre-right European People’s Party (PPP) in Madrid.

Even if Portugal’s centre-right get a vote of confidence in parliament in the days ahead, the new government will struggle to get through major legislative issues and is likely to have a limited life span.

No further general election can be held before May or June of next year. There will, however, be a presidential election when Cavaco Silva steps down in January. The future president’s first task may be to help clear up a political mess.

President Cavaco Silva with Prime Minister Passos Coelho (above) 
and opposition leader António Costa (below)

Oh for some help from outer space!

More than two weeks after the general election, Portugal will still be in the awkward position of not knowing who is to form the next government.

How much easier it would have been if a group of extraterrestrials had landed last week. They would have provided a handy solution to the conundrum created by voters on 4th October.

Portugal’s democratic history shows that minority governments can’t operate efficiently and don’t last long. So, having received the most votes but failing to win a majority, the centre-right (PaF) coalition under caretaker prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho could do with some backing from the opposition centre-left Socialists led by António Costa.

Shortly after the election, Costa said it would take “a Martian invasion” to convince him to join an alliance with the centre-right. He stopped short, however, of ruling out supporting a minority government on major legislative issues on which they could find common ground.

Negotiations between Passos Coelho and Costa on how they might compromise have so far got nowhere.

The Socialists may still hold the key to some sort of workable power-sharing arrangement, but they have a dilemma. They are pro-EU and have promised to honour this country’s budget commitments, but they oppose and want to lessen the harshness of the austerity measures imposed by the last government.

Before the election, a coalition between the Socialists and the far left - comprising the Left Bloc and the Communist Party - seemed almost unthinkable because of fundamental policy differences.

Surprise, surprise, it emerged that the centre and far left were seriously considering getting together, if only to keep the centre-right out.

The Socialists, unlike the far left, are opposed to dropping austerity or exiting the eurozone. But if the centre and far left were to marshal their differences, they could muster a majority in parliament.

Opinion polls indicate that most Portuguese do not believe the three left-wing parties could form the country's next government, but it remains a possibility.

Bloomberg Business reported that the election had been a victory for Passos Coelho and had been hailed by pundits as “a triumph for austerity and perseverance over Greek-style upheaval.”

The Financial Times said “Mr Passos Coelho’s re-election cannot be described as a ‘victory for austerity. At most, it reflects a grudging acceptance”.

The American online weekly Policy Digest claimed that, “along with last month’s Greek election, it was two in a row for the European Left.” Portugal’s ruling coalition lost its majority“in spite of a well-financed scare campaign, and a not very subtle effort by the European Union to load the dice” in the election.

Whichever way you look at it, political instability or any lack of fiscal discipline can only make Portugal’s fragile economy all the more vulnerable. Investors are already jittery.

 President Aníbal Cavaco Silva will hold separate meetings with the leaders of the main parties on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 20 and 21. Only then will the president be able to decide who to ask to form the next government.

It’s probably all a bit farcical to the record number of voters who abstained on 4^th October because they don’t hold politicians of any party in high regard. Some of the abstainers might welcome a sudden influx of sensible Martians.

Passos Coelho and Costa, unlikely partners

Weary electorate get weak government

As anticipated, there was no outright winner in this election. The centre-right coalition led by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho won the most votes, about 38%, but it lost its majority in parliament and has little prospect of serving a full term.

The centre-left polled just over 32% of the votes, less than expected, which left António Costa with another fight on his hands: to carry on as leader of the opposition Socialist Party amid calls for his resignation.

The anti-austerity Left Bloc (BE) achieved their best result ever with more than 10% of the votes. The Communist Party dipped into fourth position with just over 8%.

The turnout was a record low: 43% of eligible voters stayed away, probably because they don’t like any of the political parties or felt their vote would not make much difference to the way the country is being run.

An outright majority in the 230-seat parliament would have required 44% of the vote. As it was, the coalition have so far come away with just 104 seats - 12 short.

Four seats are still undecided as final results of voters living abroad are awaited. While emigrants have the right to vote, most don’t bother. In 2011, non-voters abroad totalled 83%.

The half a million Portuguese who have left the country since 2011 are expected to add to the overall abstention rate.

"If we stay on the path we’ve been following, we won’t need any more bailouts,"  was one of Passos Coelho’s campaign messages.

Although his victory was a hollow one, at least he has the distinction of being the first prime minister to be re-elected among the five eurozone states that received a bank bailout.

The 2011-2015 coalition government’s austerity programme was hugely unpopular, but it appears to have worked, at least to the liking of Brussels. The coalition’s electioneering strong point was that having exited its bailout program successfully in 2014, Portugal’s economy looks like it is back on its feet, showing some of the best growth rates in the eurozone.

Tough times lie ahead but the economy is expected to grow 1.6 percent in 2015 and 1.8 percent next year, according to the latest forecasts from the European Commission.

The Socialists failed to capitalise on their promise to moderate the government’s austerity measures. António Costa said they would boost households’ disposable income while going along with fiscal discipline and supporting the EU policies so adamantly opposed by the far-left.

So, in essence, the 57% of voters who bothered to turn out have just generated a weaker version of the unpopular government they had before. By a slim margin, voters have decided it's better to stick with the devil they know.

Portugal election: complications ahead

It’s shaping up to be the closest contest in Portugal’s post-revolution democracy, but such is the level of apathy, angst and anger over politics that a record number of eligible voters may not bother to cast their ballot on Sunday. Those who do vote may end up concocting a parliamentary configuration that will make governing this country much more complicated than it has been for years.

Enthusiasm for voting has been in decline since 1974. People exercise political power through periodic legislative elections in which all citizens over the age of eighteen have the right to vote under conditions of equality and freedom. Sounds good, but the abstention levels have increased dramatically.

Democracy of a limited kind first arrived in Portugal on 5 October 1910 with the overthrow of the constitutional monarchy and the establishment of the First Republic. Dubbed by some as the ‘Nightmare Republic,’ it lasted for just 16 years during which time the voting system prior to universal suffrage put into power no fewer than 45 governments.

Rampant economic ineptness and political corruption between 1910 and 1926 created turmoil and ushered in almost half a century of dictatorship. Since the revolution of 1974 there have been a relatively modest 14 freely elected governments.

The turnout of voters in 1974 was a whopping 91.7%. It has dropped almost ever general election since then. In 1983 it had plummeted to well below 80% and in 1991 to well below 70% . In the last two general elections – 2009 and 2011 – the abstention rate was in excess of 40%.

Public disenchantment and distrust of politicians in the era of harsh austerity is widespread and deep in Portugal and so another low turnout seems inevitable.

To add to the turnout concerns, top football teams will set a precedent by playing premier league matches on Sunday.

Portugal’s election commission (CNE) could do no more than express “concern” over the likely number of lost votes because of matches involving Benfica, FC Porto and Sporting. Although the CNE always asks that big games not be held on election days, no legal ban can be imposed.

The results of the football games are easier to predict than the outcome of the 2015 election. If the pollsters are to be believed, the centre-right PSD-CDS coalition and the centre-left Socialist party could each win about 100 seats in the 230-seat parliament, leaving both sides well short of a majority.

The conservative coalition have been running the show for the past four years, the first freely elected coalition government in Portugal to survive a full term in office. The centre-left are hoping to re-establish the ruling status they enjoyed between 2009 and 2011, but they have been slipping somewhat in the most recent opinion polls.

Daily tracking by pollsters show the Communists to be steady on 10% and the Left Wing Bloc on 5%, meaning that despite the deeply unpopular austerity measures imposed by the coalition alliance there is no great appetite in Portugal for radical protest parties like Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain.

With no outright winner in prospect, one possible outcome is a weak minority government that will struggle to survive. Instability that could force another election within a year or two. Such a scenario, say analysts, could undermine Portugal's reform efforts and delay its recovery from the debt crisis.

Although none of the parties are advocating it, an alternative to a minority government would be a grand coalition. It has happened before. The Socialists ruled in coalition with the PSD and the Christian Democrats in the 1980s.

Never have the Socialists shared power with the Communists and doing so now is hard to imagine. For one thing, although the Socialists have promised to ease some austerity measures, unlike the far left they share the incumbent coalition’s intention to abide by the fiscal discipline required by being a member of the 19-nation eurozone.

So it’s all up in the air; speaking of which, if you are looking for an omen, good or bad, the forecast for most of Portugal for the rest of the week is sunshine. On Sunday and Monday rain is expected. Of course, weather forecasts can turn out to be wrong. And so can polls.

Conservative leader Pedro Passos Coelho

Socialist leader António Costa

Election hots up, candidate reveals all

Gone is the perception that all politicians are shady. Well, at least one isn’t. With just over three weeks to go before Portugal’s general election, the left-wing Lisbon candidate Joana Amaral Dias has emphasised her belief in transparency.

But why would she choose to appear on the cover of a glossy magazine in the nude?

“Why not?” was her succinct reply.

Stripped naked but with her dignity deftly intact, the photo shows that Joana is expecting another child and that her eyes are firmly fixed on the large number of still undecided voters.

The 40-year-old was making something of a statement about systematic corruption and the opaque power of the elite. She advocates “a clear and faithful relationship with voters.”

Far from being just another pin-up gal, Joana is the daughter of a psychiatrist and with a Ph.D degree of her own she practices, teaches and conducts research as a clinical psychologist. She is a prolific author of scholarly as well as newspaper articles, and has published a biographical and psychological treatise on historical figures in Portugal.

As an independent politician and the mother of a young son, she served as a member of parliament between 2002 and 2005. Her latest pregnancy may limit her activities on the campaign trail, but these days there are alternatives to rushing from soap box to soap box.

When the now famous photo of Joana in the arms of her boyfriend was reproduced on her Facebook page, it attracted thousands of ‘likes’ and elicited praise for her courage and candour.

Such an unprecedented initiative is unlikely to be replicated by Finance Minister Maria Luís Albuquerque whom Joana accuses along with Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho of lying through “as many teeth as they have in their mouths” over the bank scandals.

The grey-suited brigades from the centrist Social Democrats and Socialists are fronting up to each other with no sign among the electorate of any clear party preference. Apathy is such that a large number of people are undecided which way to vote - or whether to vote at all.

Joana’s bold stance has chivvied things up in Portugal but it might not work in other countries. Germans would undoubtedly prefer Angela Merkel to remain fully clothed. In Britain, the only last-minute hope of preventing Jeremy Corbyn from securing the Labour Party leadership may have been for Yvette Cooper or Liz Kendall to disrobe, though this might have sparked a mass defection to the Tories.

If Hillary Clinton were to pose in the altogether it might arouse memories of her husband’s non-political activities in the White House. 

For now, Joana Amaral Dias’s impressive credentials remain unrivalled, but the bare fact is that we shall have to wait until 4 October before we know if she will need to take maternity leave from parliament.

Fátima peace mission to Syria delayed

A Christian plan to promote peace by taking a statue of Our Lady of Fátima from Portugal to Syria has been postponed because of the dire state of affairs in Damascus, but it has not been cancelled altogether.

The largely sectarian war between Shia and Sunni Muslims over the past four years has killed 200,000 and displaced 11 million Syrians, including many Christians caught up in the conflict.

A symbolic gesture amid the unfolding human catastrophe in Syria, the plan to take a replica pilgrim statue to Damascus from the world-renowned Fátima Shrine in central Portugal was announced in the middle of last month.

The statue was to have arrived on Monday, 7th September. On that date two years ago, Pope Francis held a day of fasting and prayer in St Peter’s Square, Rome, during which he said: “Forgiveness, dialogue, reconciliation – these are the words of peace, in beloved Syria, in the Middle East, in all the world.”

The Fátima visit had been requested by the Syrian Melkite and Greek-Catholic leader, His Beatitude Patriarch Gregorios III. Having agreed to the request, the Shrine then received a communication from the patriarch on 27th August asking for the visit to be postponed because conditions in Damascus were “aggravated.”

The patriarch did not consider it “opportune or convenient” and asked that the visit be delayed “to a later and more favourable date.” No new date has been set, but a Shrine spokesperson affirmed that “the visit will happen.”

The idea of the pilgrimage is “to implore the maternal intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary for peace and for the well-being of Christian communities who have been suffering intensely from the horrors of war.”

The Christian community in Syria is one of the world’s oldest. The apostle Paul is said to have been converted on the road to Damascus. Some Christians in the ancient town of Maaloula, about 50 kilometres northeast of Damascus, can still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

Prior to the unrest that accompanied the Arab Spring, the ethnically mixed Christian community of 1.8 million, or 10% of Syria’s population, enjoyed peace and religious freedom under the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The worsening civil war and persecution by Islamic fundamentalists have made life intolerable and forced what Patriarch Gregorios III has described as a “tsunami” of Christians to flee.

The Catholic Herald reports that the patriarch has issued an impassioned plea to young people, begging them to stay. In an open letter, a copy of which was sent to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, he said: “The almost communal wave of youth emigration, especially in Syria, but also in Lebanon and Iraq, breaks my heart, wounding me deeply and dealing me a deadly blow.”

The patriarch added: “Given this tsunami of emigration… what future is left for the Church? What will become of our homeland? What will become of our parishes and institutions?”

Prior to the pilgrimage postponement, the Bishop of Leira-Fátima, António Augosto do Santos Marto, said he wished “to respond to the appeals of the bishops in the Middle East, witnesses to the extermination of Christians in the face of the indifference of the international community.”

The rector of the Fátima Shrine, Fr Carlos Cabecinhas, had emphasised that “the message of Fátima is a message of peace.” He had urged Christians to support the statue’s visit with prayers “so that the Lord may grant peace to Syria and strengthen the Christians who live there.”

Catholics believe that the message of Fátima was delivered during apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1917 and that it includes the declaration that “no suffering is in vain.” The vision of the so-called third secret of Fátima ends with an image of hope, which is what the pilgrim statue is intended to convey.

In a related development concerning the ‘martyrdom’ of Christians as prophesied in the third secret of Fátima, a group of nuns from a Syrian monastery made an offering of three bullets and a handkerchief to the Bishop of Leiria-Fátima in honour of three Syrian Christians executed on September 4, 2013.

The Shrine reported that the three were killed by jihadists in Maaloula, one of the most beautiful and historic towns in Syria, because they would not renounce their Christian faith.

Christians worshipping in Syria

Conman Ken sought, but not by police

In a strange twist in the tale of notorious conman Kenner Elias Jones, he is now being sought not by police but by his first wife who divorced him many years ago.

Having been deported from Canada and the United States, Ken Jones has managed to outwit police forces across Europe, including Portugal, while on the run and continuing his life of fantasy and fraud.

As exposed in the past by the BBC and in this blog, Jones has had a prolific criminal career spanning more than 40 years in which he has chalked up more than 60 convictions and plenty of imprisonments.

A highly intelligent and likeable Welshman, his skills are such that a senior American immigration officer who described him as “the best conman I have ever encountered in my entire career.”

An arrest warrant was issued in Britain in 2003 when he failed to turn up for a trial. Since then, police in the UK and countries in mainland Europe have been informed from time to time about his whereabouts and various alleged fraudulent activities, but they have taken no action against him.

His first wife, a Canadian, is not aiming to have him arrested; she wants to return some of his personal belongings and talk to him about a book she is writing. Donna Lee Mackenzie, a former TV journalist, has been trying without success to locate Jones via the internet.

He was last reported in Sweden, posing as a doctor and a priest, seeking political asylum as a refugee from Kenya.

The BBC reported that after fleeing from the UK twelve years ago, Jones spent seven years in Kenya pretending to be a doctor and a priest, although he had no qualifications in either of these fields. He is believed to be still married to his third wife, a Kenyan living in her homeland.

Jones set up a charity in Kenya called Luke's Fund, but left Africa in 2010 with unpaid debts of over $100,000. A warrant for his arrest exists in Kenya as well the UK, but not in mainland Europe.

He turned up in Portugal in 2011. A property agent in the town of Palmela, south of Lisbon, said Jones expressed interest in buying a house in the €400,000 to €600,000 price range. The property agent said Jones conned him into ‘lending’ hundreds of euros by claiming he needed the money urgently for medicine and other vital expenses, but that his foreign credit card was not compatible with the Portuguese system.

A Palmela travel agent said she handed over air tickets worth €2,500 on the understanding that Jones was transferring money from an overseas bank account so that his Kenyan wife and two adopted children could fly from Nairobi to Lisbon.

On realising she had been defrauded, the travel agent reported Jones to the criminal investigation police (PJ), but she never got paid for the tickets. The Cáritas charitable organisation in Sétubal is said to have paid for the Kenyan wife and adopted children to fly back to Nairobi at the end of their Portugal visit.

Jones’ next stop was in southeastern Spain where this picture was taken. His alleged behaviour included running up an unpaid bill of some €26,000 for a six-week stay and unnecessary medical tests in a district hospital.

In 2013 he turned up in Sweden. In a statement to the BBC in April this year police in Sweden confirmed they had received information about Ken Jones, but that it did not form the basis for investigating any suspected crimes he had committed in the country. The statement added that Jones was the subject of a police investigation in the UK, but because the police in Britain had not issued a European arrest warrant, they could not intervene.

We can now reveal that it was his estranged wife Donna Lee Mackenzie who posted a comment on Portugal Newswatch last month saying: “As someone who knew Kenner very well many years ago, I have some personal items I would like to return to him. Does anyone know how I could contact him to arrange this?  I will keep any such information confidential. If you can help, please reply to doncalonlan@gmail.com”.