Portugal Government Fuels Debate About Democracy in Europe | Hacker News Reader

Portugal Government Fuels Debate About Democracy in Europe

wsj.com

14 pointsatmosx23 comments

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.

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.

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.

"the most left-wing parties would be the weakest part of the coalition".

Nope. Their votes would be as necessary to govern as the ones from the major party. Without them the coalition would break apart. It would be just a matter of time till they show their power.

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

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.

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.

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.

Like dellphonering said, the coalition that formed BEFORE the elections not AFTER.

The President can invite whoever he chooses to form government. Therefore, he's choice being right or wrong is a matter of opinion, not an "affront" to democracy.

I flagged the story because it's apparently BS, and because it's a pay wall.

Is there a better article floating around?

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.

Minority governments are fine, but only if no majority government is possible. For a minority to steal the election results against the wishes of a majority would absolutely be undemocratic. If there is a majority coalition that can find an agreement and is willing to govern, then they should form the government, not a single minority party.

Only when all other options have been exhausted, will a parliament generally be willing to support a minority government. It's not impossible, and it's even likely when the opposition is extremely divided (which might be the case in Portugal; I don't know), but if there is a majority coalition, then they should govern. Denying that is stealing the election from the people.

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.

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

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

Non paywall link: https://www.google.pt/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...

Doesn't work for me.

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?

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.

Paywall ...

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

That's ridiculous, but thank you!

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