
Portugal Government Fuels Debate About Democracy in Europe - atmosx
http://www.wsj.com/articles/portugal-government-fuels-debate-about-democracy-in-europe-1445804135
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ascorbic
This is such a fuss about nothing. The fact that Cavaco Silva mentioned the EU
when announcing this has blown this out of all proportion. This has nothing to
do with the EU. It is a president allowing the incumbent prime minister and
leader of the largest party (to which the president also belongs) to form a
minority government. This is exactly what normally happens in Portugal in this
situation. It has nothing to do with the EU, and nothing to do with a right
wing stitch up. It was a decision made by the president, as he is supposed to
do, with no input from the EU. But why let the facts get in the way when this
can get both the left-wing anti-cuts brigade and the right-wing eurosceptics
frothing at the mouth.

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fimdomeio
It is something. The dangerous message That the president passed is that in
his view some partys can't be part of the government since they are not
completetly pro Euro and don't agree with the austerity measures, the
privatizations of a lot of public services. If you can change parties but you
can't change the political agenda then you no longer have a democracy. Anyway
we're not even talking about radical changes since the most left-wing parties
would be the weakest part of the coalition.

I for one think this possibility of ps cdu and be forming a coalition would be
a possibility to form a more balanced government.

~~~
ascorbic
That would be a more compelling argument if it weren't for the fact that he's
doing the normal thing of calling on the largest party to form the government.
Yes, he gave a partisan speech, but that doesn't make his decision anything
out of the ordinary.

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ptpttptp
Portuguese here.

Nothing abnormal nor illegal.

The coalition with the most votes will rule.

If everyone else is against that they can vote them out.

None issue blown completely out of proportion.

(vide the ridiculous #PortugalCoup)

Edit: or => nor

~~~
LoneWolf
I'm Portuguese too, I can also confirm this, this is the usual procedure, the
party with more votes is the one who forms government, having more than 50% of
the votes or not. Yes it may have a hard time since the opposition can join
forces and vote against everything.

This is nothing more than the losing side whining because it wanted to rule,
the same side that said if it lost the elections would disaprove blindly the
state budget everytime.

~~~
mcv
You can confirm what ptpttptp said? But you contradict him. He said the
coalition with the most votes will rule (which seems to be the left-wing
coalition), whereas you claim the party with the most votes will form the
government, even if they have less than 50% of the votes (which would be
really odd if there's a majority coalition willing to govern).

It sounds like the losing side is stealing government despite losing the
election here. Unless of course that largest party can form a majority
coalition with a moderate left-wing party. Then everything would be fine. But
forming a minority government against the wishes of the parliament, should not
be possible.

~~~
dellphonering
The right-wing parties ran as a coalition, single box in the ballot. The left-
wing parties ran isolated and want to form a coalition after the results. The
problem here is one of perspective: there are no winners or losers, there is
only number of seats in parliament, and the left has the majority. The
President can invite whoever he chooses to form government and he chose the
right.

There have been successful minority governments before. In this case, the left
(if they can reach an agreement) is claiming that they will pass a vote-of-no-
confidence on this government.

There is another issue here. The President himself is on the way out and he
cannot call for new elections. But everything is proceeding according to our
constitution, so democracy is safe.

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yeureka
As a Portuguese I am amazed this is on HN, but as others have mentioned there
is no coup.

The President just followed the rules and mandated the most voted
party/coalition into government. Minority governments have been empowered many
times before.

What he did wrong was to give an extremely polarizing speech that labeled some
of the parties with seats in parliament as unfit for government. This makes
him look suspiciously in favor of a government of his own party and has had
the side effect of potentially unifying the left wing into a coalition with
majority in parliament.

I think the current government is incredibly bad and stuffed with incompetent
and corrupt people.

Unfortunately I don't know if the left will be any better.

There is no natural reason why Portugal can't be a much richer society.

It just needs more effective and less corrupt governments.

~~~
LoneWolf
I have no hope for either side, the right we had 4 years to see how they are
and it speaks for itself, the left considering the anti-euro speeches of the
extreme ones makes me fear that if they manage to form a government will not
reach an understanding between them, I remember reading that Jeronimo de Sousa
does not want any written and signed agreement with Antonio Costa, that also
makes me very distrustful of them.

While I can understand the motivations of Cavaco Silva to label some of the
parties unfit for government (anti-euro etc), it does indeed make it sound
like he is favoring one side, and to make it worse they are the same party,
but I do believe he is being neutral about all this.

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galfarragem
Antonio Costa (from second most voted party) has an history of anti-democracy
and putting is personal ambitions first [1]. (Sorry, portuguese language only.
Anyway we seem to be in majority in this thread :)

[1]
[http://www.jn.pt/opiniao/default.aspx?content_id=4835053](http://www.jn.pt/opiniao/default.aspx?content_id=4835053)

~~~
dellphonering
That is an opinion article penned by one of his opponents!

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LoneWolf
Non paywall link:
[https://www.google.pt/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](https://www.google.pt/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwi9_66ht-
LIAhUDQBQKHfWuBHA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fportugal-
government-fuels-debate-about-democracy-in-
europe-1445804135&usg=AFQjCNGNulnwcgYZazxDEnfneSPnczl1xw&sig2=xjf9b2brsrLL1m23d99-PQ)

~~~
ptpttptp
Doesn't work for me.

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galfarragem
This is completely BS.

Democracy is allowing 18% of euroskeptic portuguese to rule Portugal?

Democracy is allowing an unstable post-election coalition that nobody voted
for to govern?

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LoneWolf
As a voter I feel betrayed by this post-election coalition (if it ever forms
they seem too unstable), because there is a difference for me between voting
for a party or a coalition of multiple ones, if I am against the ideologies of
one of the parties I may not vote for them.

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jmnicolas
Paywall ...

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hrnnnnnn
Copy URL, paste URL into google, click result, no paywall. I cannot believe
how stupid this is.

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gloves
That's ridiculous, but thank you!

