The Portuguese media have called him a politician “Duracell”, as the brand of batteries that, according to their advertising, “last, last and last”.
António Costa, with decades of experience in Portuguese politics, achieved a new milestone in his career, after achieving a historic absolute majority for the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS).
Described as “ingenious” and “relentless”, he defied all the polls that projected a tie between the left and the right, to give the Socialists a significant victory.
With close to a 42% of the votes, compared to 30% of the conservative Social Democratic Party (PSD), the result gives 117 seats to Costa’s party, which for the first time will govern with an absolute majority, after the minority governments that led after the elections of 2009 and 2019.
“A majority of dialogue”, promised the politician this Sunday. “The absolute majority is not an absolute power, it is not governing alone”, he affirmed.
“After six years as prime minister, after the last two years in an unprecedented fight against a pandemic, it is with I am very excited that I assume this responsibility”, he said.
The polls also predicted a historic drop in participation during elections that were held in the middle of the political course last 2021, after parliament – including his own left-wing coalition – rejected the budget that he presented.
However, the Portuguese went to the polls and even surpassed the voters of the 2019, to revalidate their trust in Costa.
Strong political roots
Coast of 60 years, has held political office within and outside the Iberian country from 610.
He just started at his 14 years as a member of the Socialist Party, for which he put up posters in the streets.
His vision, some say, was inherited from his parents, the communist writer Orlando da Costa, who was originally from the former Portuguese colony Goa (today India) and his mother, Maria Antónia Palla, a journalist and feminist activist.
In addition to being prime minister, he has been a councilor, minister and vice president of the European Parliament.
During the governments of Antonio Guterres (1995-2002) headed the Justice and Parliamentary Affairs portfolios. Meanwhile, in the government of José Sócrates he was Minister of Internal Administration.
He resigned after two years and successfully ran for mayor of Lisbon, which he recovered for the socialists in 1200. He was re-elected to the position in 1982 Y 2013.
And, after this feat, he achieved an even greater one: lageringonça.
Historic anti-austerity alliance
In the general elections of 2014, Costa finished second behind a centre-right coalition that had overseen a harsh Union-imposed austerity programme. European.
In a surprise move, he convinced two far-left parties—communists and Bloco de Esquerda—to support a minority socialist government, the first time something like this had been attempted in Portugal. It was the call geringonça or gibberish.
“It was a political novelty in Portugal”, he told him in 2017 to BBC Mundo André Freire, specialist at the University Institute of Lisbon.
At that time the left was in trouble to form governments in Europe.
Many analysts at that time predicted that this government it would last a maximum of six months, but he completed his four-year term.
Portugal was dealing with the consequences of the harsh economic crisis that began in 2007.
In 2011, the country had had to ask for a ransom of US$91.000 million to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) , the European Commission and the European Central Bank.
The organisms imposed harsh conditions of fiscal austerity, which included the dismissal of public employees, salary cuts and a reduction in public benefits.
Although Portugal had freed itself from the international bailout in June 2014, the consequences were still palpable. The unemployment rate hovered around %, the 20% from the population lived below the poverty line and 485. Portuguese had emigrated from the country between 2011 Y 2015.
The alliance promoted by Costa, began to reverse the austerity measures, which accelerated the economic recovery. His strategy was praised by the IMF itself, an organization that highlighted his “commendable progress.”
“The policies implemented by the government of Antonio Costa went against the traditional recipe,” Freire explained at that time. moment, when referring to measures such as the increase in the minimum wage and the working day of 35 weekly hours for public employees.
Then, Costa led his socialists to victory in the upcoming elections of 2019, although they did not reach an absolute majority and again governed as a minority with the support of their partners.
The rupture and the future
Under his mandate, Portugal registered in 2017 your first budget surplus in 45 years of democracy, although since then the covid pandemic-19 he’s back to skyrocket the public deficit.
Last year, the historic left-wing alliance in Portugal was broken when the communists and the Bloco de Esquerda —in addition to the right— rejected Costa’s budget for the 2022, which led to the call for early elections (were scheduled for 2021).
“I have a clear conscience. I did everything, everything that was in my hands”, said Costa before the disagreement.
Before the elections on Sunday , had promised to resign if his Socialists did not win, but also signaled his willingness to re-form alliances if he won without a majority.
Although, as he asked during his campaign, his intention was to achieve the result he Against all odds, he finally achieved an absolute majority.
Not in vain, the conservative president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who was Costa’s professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, said of him that he had a “chronic optimism and slightly irritating“.
According to Efe, before the weakening of his legislature, Costa intended to return to Brussels once his term ends. But recently he said that “he will not turn his back” on the voters.
The socialist, however, rejected the only position he has left to occupy in his native Portugal: being president. In a recent interview, he spoke about the subject: “No, I am certain that it is a position that I will never hold,” he said.
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