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Roundup: Portugal's ruling coalition hopes to win despite austerity delusion

Xinhua, October 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

Portugal's center-right ruling coalition has implemented one of the harshest austerity programs in the country's history and yet this Sunday Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho has a fair chance of gaining a second mandate.

While the middle classes have been slowly eaten away by tax hikes and numerous protests and strikes have flared up in the past years, the government can proudly say it has helped the economy back on track.

The sacrifices the country made "were not in vain," Passos Coelho said last week during a campaign, adding "we can today say that we have managed."

Passos Coelho had to cut spending by 3.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in both 2012 and 2013 and was faced with a staggering high unemployment rate of 12.6 percent.

The economy finally started to grow last year, by 0.9 percent and unemployment dropped steadily, after hitting a startling 18 percent in 2013. The economy grew 1.5 percent in the first half of this year.

Portugal's economic recovery, helped by external factors like oil prices bolstering growth in the euro zone and the European Central Bank's bond buying program, seems to have given the Portuguese some relief.

But the most dazzling issue for most Europeans is why there is no party like Greece's Syriza in Portugal.

Joao Cesar das Neves, an economist at Lisbon's Catholic University, says the mainstream parties are continuing to dominate because other parties simply offer no alternatives.

"Other parties do not present alternatives, so people prefer to continue than risk novelty," Cesar das Neves tells Xinhua.

The Socialist Party's Antonio Costa has insisted on a reversing austerity, vowing to lower taxes and rise salaries, accusing Passos Coelho is "obsessed" with austerity.

However, "he (Antonio Costa) has failed to distance himself from the previous government," Cesar das Neves says.

The Socialist Party has a tainted reputation, mainly due to a scandal involving former Prime Minister Socrates, who was imprisoned last year and is under house arrest due to allegations of corruption and money laundering.

Election polls just a few weeks ago showed the Socialist Party and the ruling coalition were running neck and neck. The Socialist Party could win on Sunday, with polls not being fully accurate.

But whatever the results on Sunday, either party will have to continue austerity in upcoming years given the country's frail economy.

And that's why many people, with no end in sight, will not be voting on Sunday, with the abstention rate this year expected to be abnormally high. Enditem