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As a Portuguese I am amazed this is on HN, but as others have mentioned there is no coup. The President just followed the rules and mandated the most voted par
by yeureka 11y ago
As a Portuguese I am amazed this is on HN, but as others have mentioned there is no coup.
The President just followed the rules and mandated the most voted party/coalition into government. Minority governments have been empowered many times before.
What he did wrong was to give an extremely polarizing speech that labeled some of the parties with seats in parliament as unfit for government.
This makes him look suspiciously in favor of a government of his own party and has had the side effect of potentially unifying the left wing into a coalition with majority in parliament.
I think the current government is incredibly bad and stuffed with incompetent and corrupt people.
Unfortunately I don't know if the left will be any better.
There is no natural reason why Portugal can't be a much richer society.
It just needs more effective and less corrupt governments.
- LoneWolf 11y agoI have no hope for either side, the right we had 4 years to see how they are and it speaks for itself, the left considering the anti-euro speeches of the extreme ones makes me fear that if they manage to form a government will not reach an understanding between them, I remember reading that Jeronimo de Sousa does not want any written and signed agreement with Antonio Costa, that also makes me very distrustful of them. While I can understand the motivations of Cavaco Silva to label some of the parties unfit for government (anti-euro etc), it does indeed make it sound like he is favoring one side, and to make it worse they are the same party, but I do believe he is being neutral about all this.
- galfarragem 11y agoAntonio Costa (from second most voted party) has an history of anti-democracy and putting is personal ambitions first [1]. (Sorry, portuguese language only. Anyway we seem to be in majority in this thread :) [1] http://www.jn.pt/opiniao/default.aspx?content_id=4835053 http://www.jn.pt/opiniao/default.aspx?content_id=4835053
- dellphonering 11y agoThat is an opinion article penned by one of his opponents!
- mcv 11y agoMinority governments are fine, but only if no majority government is possible. For a minority to steal the election results against the wishes of a majority would absolutely be undemocratic. If there is a majority coalition that can find an agreement and is willing to govern, then they should form the government, not a single minority party. Only when all other options have been exhausted, will a parliament generally be willing to support a minority government. It's not impossible, and it's even likely when the opposition is extremely divided (which might be the case in Portugal; I don't know), but if there is a majority coalition, then they should govern. Denying that is stealing the election from the people.