After austerity and election win, Portugal's Coelho faces biggest challenge yet
- 9 years ago
Winning an election after introducing the toughest austerity measures in decades turned out to be just the first challenge facing Portuguese prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho.
No he needs to figure out how to run the country without a majority in parliament. A minority administration has not survived a full term in Portugal since the 1974 overthrow of the fascist regime.
Political expert Pedro Magalhaes says the prime minister does have a base upon which to build:
“He is seen as calm and reserved and generally speaking a truthful person, although of course the opposition points to many contradictions between some promises he made before the 2011 election and what he ended up doing.”
Coelho’s Socialist rival Antonio Costa campaigned promising to lighten austerity, but that wasn’t enough to set him apart in people’s minds from his party’s relatively recent record.
According to Magalhaes: “He is not seen as someone who is a clear cut [from] the previous Socialist government. The
No he needs to figure out how to run the country without a majority in parliament. A minority administration has not survived a full term in Portugal since the 1974 overthrow of the fascist regime.
Political expert Pedro Magalhaes says the prime minister does have a base upon which to build:
“He is seen as calm and reserved and generally speaking a truthful person, although of course the opposition points to many contradictions between some promises he made before the 2011 election and what he ended up doing.”
Coelho’s Socialist rival Antonio Costa campaigned promising to lighten austerity, but that wasn’t enough to set him apart in people’s minds from his party’s relatively recent record.
According to Magalhaes: “He is not seen as someone who is a clear cut [from] the previous Socialist government. The