Portuguese politics can be called “traditional”, but the term is used pejoratively.
As is the case in many Mediterranean countries, Portugal’s lack of a political culture and strong civil society have driven it to mismanage the political freedoms it acquired during the 1970s when the authoritarian government was replaced by a democratic one.
Similarly, it failed to properly manage the financial backing it gained by joining the European single currency in the early 2000s.
Political jobs
One of the key features of the Portuguese system is the number of public functions that are subject to political nomination, which implies that there is a great number of people whose jobs depend on a particular political party.
This also means that every time the government changes, so does the leadership of many of the state’s agencies. Not only is experience lost, but political agendas are changed with ease. As a consequence, no thorough reforms are ever undertaken, let alone completed.
The example of José Sócrates
Political youth leagues abound in Portuguese politics since they are a pathway to a job.
Former prime minister José Sócrates was a true product of Portugal’s system, having been a member of both the main center-left and main center-right party. Having only barely obtained an engineering degree from a shady university, he had little experience outside politics.
His stewardship of the Portuguese government was everything one would expect from a man of the system. Demagogy and populism were taken to unparalleled extremes and, while the national debt spiraled out of control, his administration made cultural issues like gay marriage and legal abortion its battle cry.
With a compliant president and an absolute one-party majority in parliament, Sócrates managed to double what was already a bloated national debt. The reforms he enacted were few and without substance.
Mismanagement
Portugal’s political left has not been alone in succumbing to populism, but given that it received a mandate from voters to manage the Portuguese state for twelve of the past sixteen years — tragically also during the time when most of the country’s manufacturing jobs were outsourced to Asia — the importance of this mismanagement reached new heights.
Sócrates’ predecessor and now United Nations high commissioner for refugees, António Guterres, implemented numerous welfare and health-care programs that Portugal could ill afford as its economy stagnated
Sócrates’ immediate predecessor, the incumbent president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, lacked both a parliamentary majority and the political courage to implement reforms and cut spending. His government didn’t last long.
Pragmatist
Unlike Sócrates, Portugal’s new leader, Pedro Passos Coelho, is a conservative who doesn’t try to divert the country’s attention from its debt and deficit problems. However, following in the best populist traditions, he does so knowing that his popularity depends on his image as an austere financial manager.
When a few years ago, he ran for the leadership of Portugal’s now ruling party, his platform was that of a classical economic conservative (neoliberal) but also a socially liberal one. He lost those elections — and learned. When he gained the premiership, he did so having run as something of a Christian Democrat.
Passos Coelho is a pragmatist. With a comfortable majority in parliament and an opposition that’s being led by a member of its left wing, his first mandate is almost certain to go smoothly.
If European and international policy demands are met, it also ominously means that no serious reforms are likely to be undertaken.
Promises over reality
When Passos Coelho ran for the leadership of his party, his opponent was a conservative former education and finance minister. She wasn’t of the adaptable kind. When she campaigned against Sócrates in 2009, she did not hide her social conservative views but also made it a point not to make promises and denounce as much as possible the severe financial situation the country was in.
Sócrates his turn promised a new airport, high-speed railways and the preservation of the social security system.
Portuguese voters chose his promises over a reality check just as they had done in previous years by electing politicians who gave them one of the best highway systems in Europe — and one of the most underused — instead of voting for painful reforms. Cement is more real than abstract efficiency.
Not bright
It is true that Portugal’s problems are structural and that leadership will not be that preponderant in the long term, but with the prospect of Portugal’s presidency being occupied by inept former leaders and Prime Minister Passos Coelho ruling as a wind sack for the time being, the future doesn’t look bright.
The paradox that more government and ever higher tax rates have only ever resulted in sluggish growth and contributed to more indebtedness is still lost on the Portuguese left. While the delocalization of European industry to Eastern Europe, North Africa, Asia and beyond was not Portugal’s fault, the rise in the fiscal burden was.
In spite of the depression that the current financial crisis has caused in Portugal, the export sector is still expanding, in large part thanks to Lisbon’s proximity to the Angolan, Brazilian and other former colonial markets.
However, even Portuguese companies will think twice before reinvesting their overseas profits at home if the overly bureaucratic and slow judicial system isn’t reformed and tax rates remain high.