ANTÓNIO COSTA, leader of Portugal’s Socialist Party (PS), may soon be able to tell the curious story of how to lose a vote and yet still become prime minister. After the election on October 4th, far from winning a majority as he had hoped, his PS was not even the biggest party. That title went to the centre-right alliance led by Pedro Passos Coelho, the incumbent prime minister. Many expected Mr Costa to resign as party leader.
Yet within weeks, Mr Costa expects to become prime minister of an “anti-austerity” government. This is the result of a bold—and perhaps historic—compromise between his own moderate party and the far left. Before then, Mr Passos Coelho will be sworn in as prime minister, but his minority government seems doomed from the outset to last little more than a fortnight before losing a “motion of rejection”.
The demolition of what Mr Costa calls Portugal’s “Berlin Wall”, a 40-year ideological divide within the left, has as much to do with his instinct for survival as with any new political vision. The former mayor of Lisbon fought a knives-out battle to become PS leader last year, accusing his predecessor of failing to capitalise on the hardships inflicted on ordinary Portuguese by four years of austerity under Mr Passos Coelho. After losing the election, Mr Costa rejected the humiliating option of backing the...Continue reading
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