Socialists win big in Portugal

2005-02-21 08:29

Lisbon - Voters turned to the opposition Socialists to guide Portugal out of its political and economic crisis, endorsing the centre-left party's recovery plan by handing it a landslide general election victory.

In its biggest-ever win, the Socialist Party collected 120 seats in Sunday's election to secure an overall majority in the 230-seat legislature for the first time.

Socialist leader Jose Socrates, who will become prime minister, was an environment minister in a former Socialist government, says he wants this country to "change direction" through measures to modernise the economy.

Portugal's unemployment rate reached a six-year high of 7.1% at the end of last year and economic statistics show the country of 10.3 million is falling behind the rest of the European Union.

"Portugal today has a new parliamentary majority and new hope," said Socrates, who is due to take office next month as Portugal's fourth prime minister in three years.

He said the country faces "serious difficulties" and voters showed they wanted to "build a new project for Portugal".

The Social Democratic Party, which had governed in a coalition with the Popular Party since 2002, recorded its worst result since 1983, with 72 members in the new Parliament.

"A political cycle has ended here today," said Pedro Santana Lopes, the outgoing prime minister and Social Democratic Party leader.

Portugal has long based its growth on low-skill, low-pay sectors such as textiles and footwear, which together employ around 300 000 people. Those sectors are now up against higher-skilled, lower-paid competition from new EU members and from outside the 25-nation bloc.

Socrates says he wants the private sector to join him in engendering a broad modernisation of the economy. He says he will focus on education, professional re-training and technological innovation.

Socrates opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq, which the outgoing government supported, although he says he values warm relations with the United States.

"I want this victory to mean we can assert ourselves within Europe and internationally at the service of peace, justice and development," Socrates said in his victory speech.

The Popular Party snared 12 seats, two fewer than in the last election, prompting its leader Paulo Portas to resign.

Other leftist parties gained. The Communist Party/Green Party alliance took 14 seats and the Left Bloc eight.

Four seats based on postal ballots were to be allocated next week.

Turnout was put at 65% of the country's 8.8 million voters, slightly up from the last election in 2002.

Santana Lopes, who took over as prime minister last year after Jose Manuel Barroso quit to become European Commission President, was effectively fired by President Jorge Sampaio in December following a series of missteps which shook public trust in the government. Sampaio dissolved Parliament and called this early election, ahead of the scheduled vote in 2006.

- AP