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Portuguese Elections

Clear Win for Socialists, Left Bloc Takes 8 Seats

Monday 21 February 2005

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The general election in Portugal has given the militant Left Bloc more than 6% of the vote and 8 seats in parliament. Among the Left Bloc deputies elected were PSR members Francisco Louçã in Lisbon and Alda
Macedo in Oporto.

In Sunday’s general election the Socialist Party won an outright majority, with 45% of the vote, but taking 119 of the 230 parliamentary seats. With an absolute majority of seats, the SP has no need of coalition partners, either to its left or right.

The governing right wing alliance (Social Democratic Party and Popular Party)saw their vote fall by more than 500,000 to 28.7%, taking 72 seats.

Logo of the Left Bloc

On the left the Communist Party-Green alliance won 7.57% of the vote and won 14 seats, the same number as in the last parliament, but with a fall in their vote (down from 8.75% , a loss of about 50,000 votes).

The Left Bloc won 6.38% of the vote (364,284 votes), up from 2.75% (149,532 votes) at the last election, and increasing the parliamentary representation from 3 to 8 deputies.

To the left of the Socialist Party the big story is obviously the stagnation-decline of the CP and allies vote, and the surge of the Left Bloc.

In an article in the current issue of IV (written before the election abnd commenting on last Summer’s European election) Jorge Costa, Antonio Louça and Joao Carlos Louça say about the CP, "...the PCP is losing votes to the Bloc in all the polling stations where young people vote and is starting to lose overall in the big urban centres."

More news when we get it.