leader just three months ahead of the polls in a desperate attempt to hold onto its voters who were fleeing to the centre ground, represented by the Socialist Party (PS).
Although the PS had governed for four years without an absolute majority, on the questions which really mattered, it could count on a huge majority in parliament-including the votes of the PSD deputies, and often those of the PP as well. "Key" votes included its policies for a more flexible labour market, imposing globalisation at the expense of workers' rights, privatising key sectors of the economy; its foreign policies, including relations with the European Commission and the EU treaties; and its social policies, promoting private sector involvement in the fields of education, health and social security.
Portugal has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the European Union, but almost half the workforce is in insecure employment. Average wages are the lowest in the European community, and the minimum wage is far below subsistence level.
The PS governed for four years without any substantial differences with the right which had been in government for the previous ten years. There were the same privileges for the same economic groups which today control most of the domestic economy, the same use of the state apparatus by party structures to strengthen their influence at various levels, and the same corrupt and bureaucratic system of justice. The few voices raised in favour of reform, including some within the PS, soon found themselves sidelined and silenced
The PS government gave prompt
Portugal's Left Bloc The parliamentary elections in Portugal on 10 October inflicted a double defeat on the establishment parties. The conservative parties only won 40%, and the Socialist Party failed to win the absolute majority it was hoping for. João Carlos Louçã
The real good news of these elections were the two seats won by the Left Block, a new, innovative movement of the alternative left.
After four years of minority government, the Socialist Party seemed to have
International Viewpoint #317-318 January 2000 every chance of finally winning an absolute majority in parliament. The economy was going well and it had succ eeded in meeting the convergence criteria for Europe's single currency. And it could ride on the back of a wave of national pride that followed the holding of Expo 98 in Lisbon, Saramago's Nobel prize in the same year, and the outstanding mobilisation of intervention by the UN in September.
On the right there is no credible leadership. The alliance between the PSD (Social Democratic Party) and the PP (Popular Party) fell apart after only two months. The PSD elected a new support for NATO's bombing of Serbia and Kosovo. Just as the United States felt no need for a mandate from the UN, so the Portuguese government preferred not to wait for parliament to implement its political and military support. Not that it had any doubts about the very broad parliamentary support for such measures, but out of natural arrogance and operational convenience. Later, as it become clear that a majority of public opinion was against the military intervention, the government started to downplay down the country's military role.
But the decisive break between the PS and any expectations which its government might have encouraged on the left came on the question of abortion. At the beginning of the year a group of deputies from the Socialist Youth and the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party) proposed legislation liberalising access to abortion. It was
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Portugal
approved in parliament by a small majority. The following day the socialist leaders announced a deal with the right to hold a referendum on the question. The referendum was held on 28 June and was lost by less than 2%, with a level of abstention of about 70%.
The main responsibility for this disaster lay with the PS. A majority of members, leaders and probably voters initially supported liberalising access to abortion. But not Prime Antonio Guterres. He ignored the party's long-standing secular and republican traditions, surrounding his administration with representatives and thinkers of the catholic church. Although PS leaders repeatedly insisted
La matter of "individual , the prime minister's clear indication that he would vote in line with the church led to the paralysis of the PS membership and its leaders.
The victory achieved by the demagogy and murky methods of the right, embodied in the catholic church, was also a victory for the prime minister over the left traditions of his own party.
Antonio Guterres was recently chosen as president of the Socialist International. He is clearly on the same wavelength as the "third way" of Anthony Giddens, Tony Blair and Gerhardt Schroeder.
"The arena of conformity and conservatism now belongs to the social democracy," Ignacio Ramonet wrote in the April issue of Le Monde Diplomatique. "It is the modern right". Despite a few relics of its socialist past, Portugal's PS is no exception within European social democracy. It has accepted the historic mission of naturalising neo-liberalism". It governs like the right because it represents a new expression for the modern right.
Timor—an exemplary mobilisation
After the May agreements in New York between Portugal, Indonesia and the UN, the holding of the referendum on autonomy for the territory of East Timor opened the door to increasing manipulation and violence.
In Portugal, this agreement was presented as a great victory for "our" diplomacy, the end of an epoch, with Indonesia finally recognising the Timorese people's right to self-determination and Lisbon winning the fight for human rights in its former colony.
The Left Block was the only political current to criticise the agreement for not including the release of political prisoners and for trusting the Indonesian army of occupation to guarantee security during the referendum. It was obviously a bad agreement.
But despite these criticisms the Block expressed solidarity with the CNRT (National Council of Timorese Resistance) Which saw hoped the agreement could provide a way out of the impasse.
In the first week of September, after the release of the referendum results showed a huge victory for the cause of independence, the violence of the prointegration militias (paramilitary groups the Indonesian military) turned into barbarous genocide and mass deportation. Independence activists and supporters of the resistance were persecuted without mercy in a war presence of journalists transformed the massacre into news stories that quickly spread around the world, with a profound impression on the Portuguese public. Portugal's preelectoral period saw intense solidarity mobilisations, cutting across all ages, social classes and areas of the country.
In Lisbon and Oporto, the first street demonstrations were called by the Left Block. Later broader coalitions came together to back the demonstrations, but it was above all spontaneously that this presence on the streets became a daily occurrence. In Lisbon two locations became the prime targets: the offices of the UN in Portugal and the American embassy. But the embassies of all the countries on the Security Council also demonstrations on their doorsteps-day
In this highly charged atmosphere of extraordinary mobilisation, the Left Block and its leaders were the first to take to the streets and set out a plan of activity, launching proposals and fixing the next day's meeting points. Without waving its own flag, without trying to manipulate a sentiment of solidarity which was obviously averse to being "exploited' in any way, the Block was able to assert its presence and make a decisive contribution to the mobilisations on the streets of Portugal's cities. These were two weeks of intense activity, leading up to the decision by the UN to back military intervention.
But of course it was the PS which gained most from this mobilisation, firstly because it could claim a dipl omatic victory, and secondly because the whole question of humanitarian aid put the government's initiative at the centre of people's concerns. Communist Party
The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) is an exception among European Communist parties. It existed in contents europe
2
Portugal's Left Bloc
• João Carlos Louçã
6 Portugal: History of the
Left Bloc • João Carlos Louçã
7 EU: Just in time?
• Søren Kirk Christiansen asia
India: communalism,
10 women and violence
• Soma Marik
12 Privatising China
• Lau Yu Fan latin america
14
Brazil: Report from PT
Congress • Fernanda Estima and Rosana Ramos
Brazil: Report from
16
Socialist Democracy (DS)
Congress • Em Tempo
After Seattle - world trade, debt, and new forms of resistance...
The world according to the
19
WTO • Pierre Rousset
23 Social clauses, social resistance • Denis Horman
The debt bomb • Eric
29
Toussaint listings and reviews
33 Index for 1999
International Viewpoint #317-318 January 2000 3
Portugal clandestinity until April 1974, and consolidated itself as a major force of opposition during the dictatorship. Through a history of contradictions, purges and silencing any internal opposition-processes which were made more intense by the conditions of clandestinity and political repression imposed by the regimethe party stuck to a line of total orthodoxy. Not even the fall of the Berlin wall seemed to have an effect.
After the revolution of 1974 it was a key force in consolidating the constitutional legislature — even when that parliament opposed the aspirations of the masses and the demands for popular democracy which were beginning to emerge. In the middle of the cold war the prevailing division of international politics could not allow a socialist revolution Portugal; it was up to the PCP to take on view of politics and renounce any attempt at revolution.
Nonetheless it did retain its organicapacity and leading role amongst Portuguese workers, especially in the rural zones of agrarian reform in the south (Alentejo), and in the industrial belts of Lisbon and 4 International Viewpoint #317-318 January 2000
In 1991 it was one of the few communist parties to support the (unsuccessful) coup against Soviet leader Mikhael Gorbachev and his perestroika policies. The party was immune to the powerful winds of change blowing through the international communist movement in the early nineties. Whilst the communist parties of France and Italy were turning into social democrats, and the Spanish party was experimenting with an the PCP didn't think twice about expelling dissident voices.
There was no visible sign of self-criticism. No attempt to understand its own errors or the world which was fast changing around it. On the contrary, the PCP relentlessly repressed all expressions of renewal or debatee amongst the membership. strength declined year after year-it lost about half a million vote between 1989 and 1999. These were the years — difficult to comprehend for many of its own members -of new international alliances with the People's Republic of China, in the wake of the Tianamen massacre, with North Korea, and with the Serbian regime of Milosevic.
The party's institutional strength was drastically reduced. Above all it let slip the opportunity of renewing and breathing fresh life into the left.
The replacement of Alvaro Cunhal as the PCP's leader in 1992 marked the beginning of a new phase in the party in which, slowly, differences, tensions and new sensibilities could begin to emerge. This discussion is still unclear, but it could throw up personalities and currents of opinion that would justify a new hope of renewal in the PCP.
In 1995, after the Socialist Party's victory in the parliamentary elections, the Communist Party underwent a notable change. It began to talk of the need for an "alternative administration". This was still too vague for anyone to accuse it of wanting to govern with the PS, but did show that the party was clearly reaching out to the government, and that it would expect something in return. The was a clear influence of the French model, where Communists and Greens participate in a "plural left" government. But this orientation has its difficulties. On the one hand the membership was still schooled in sectarian opposition to the PS. On the other hand, the PS preferred to consolidate its rule by making parliamentary alliances to its right, rather than reach any agreement with the PCP. The Greens
Set up as a purely artificial creation by the PCP apparatus in the early 80s, the Greens served to justify the United Democratic Coalition, or CDU, in whose name the PCP has since then stood for election. With no independent voice, it is in fact a PCP front for work in the environmental movement. For all practical purposes the two Green seats in parliament are subject to PCP discipline. Lisbon's municipal socialism
Until 1989 the capital city was governed by a coalition of the two right-wing parties. But PS leader, now President of the Republic, Jorge Sampaio, decided to take an unprecedented risk, and unite the left in Lisbon in an effort to win the city council back from the right. The coalition between the PS and PCP later drew in other left organisations and their supporters Jorge Sampaio headed the coalition slate and won a resounding victory in all the city's neighbourhoods.
The capital's city council became the alternative which showed that a right wing majority was not inevitable. When it was reelected for a second term
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the left coalition was joined by the PSR (revolutionary Marxist), the UDR (ex Maoist) and the Greens, who had already won some council seats in the previous coalition. The unity of the left was strengthened and its principles became clearer. Both in Lisbon across the country there was a very widespread sentiment of opposition to the government.
This situation changed substantially won the parliamentary elections in 1995 and when Jorge Sampaio won the presidency in 1996. The leadership of the Lisbon council fell to João Soares, Mario Soares' son and a representative of the one of the most opportunistic and reactionary wings of the Socialist Party. The city council's loss of credibility, and the arrogance of this new leadership, led the PSR to break with the left front in Lisbon in 1997. The organisation had at that time three elected members of the Municipal Assembly.
In December 1997 the PS/PCP/ Greens/UDP coalition faced a challenge from a new United Left coalition, formed in Lisbon and Oporto between the PSR and a small group of ex-PCP intellectuals, Politica XXI. In spite of the difficulties and a media boycott this coalition won 3% of the votes in the first-time voters. In the October 1999 election the block won 132,000 votes (2.5%). This is a qualitative improvement on the 71,000 votes which the PSR and UDP attracted in the 1995 elections.. This was the far left's highest score in almost twenty years (radical left slates won 168,000 votes in 1979 and 143,000 in 1980).
But Portugal still faces a massive rate of disillusionment with electoral politics. Despite intensive "cleaning" of the electoral rolls, an incredible 38% of those registered to vote stayed at home on polling day. Concentration
The Block's electoral campaign concentrated on three key areas: Lisbon, Porto and Setúbal. The results suggest that this was a correct strategy. Over 70% of the Block's votes comes from these core areas. The Block's best score was 6% in the city of Lisbon. In 1997, the PSR and Politica XXI won 3,1% in the city, electing two municipal deputies, in the first alternative left campaign in many years. (In 1991, the PSR won 2% of Lisbon city votes, failing to elect a member of parliament by only 200 votes).
In Porto, the Block won 4.4%, more than thee times the PSR and UDP vote in 1995. With only 1200 votes more, Miguel Portas would have been elected as the third Block MP. In Setúbal the block won 3.5%, with higher local scores in urban districts.
But in the countryside, voters are older and dispersed over wide areas, the Block lacked the organisational and militant capacity to assure a strong political presence. The new name and symbol didn't help this task. So, in some districts the radical left vote was smaller than in 1995. Youth block
With a combative and irreverent campaign, the Block put youth concerns, like the legalisation of drugs, at the centre of public debate.. This plain talking, taboo-breaking approach is a traditional strong point of the PSR. It explains why the Block was able to get an enormous young adhesion, in debates, concerts, and public meetings — and in an urban youth vote of 20% or more. The Block is now the the third most popular party among young people * capital and elected one city councillor. Interview with "Chico" Louçã This strengthened an alternative pole of the non-institutional left -standing A real alternative! together in elections for the first time.
For the PCP, which had already come close to winning the largest share of the vote in the capital, co-management of the city with the PS could prove electorally disastrous, with growing loss of its electoral support. At the same time its subordinate position in the city government, forever tied to supporting its senior partners, makes it a hostage to anti-popular policies, confuses supporters and trades basic left-wing principles for a handful of positions on the city council and a few hundred civil service jobs in the city administration.
Although the social-democratic current within the PCP holds up the example of Lisbon in its efforts to win a greater role in national government under the socialists, internally the party knows it is in a difficult situation. The left-wing character of the city administration is far from clear, and the radical left is competing for its space— there are 37,000 votes for the PCP/Greens, and 21,000 for the new Left Block.
The profile of Left Block supporters is very close to the PSR elector profile identified in previous elections. Our votes are concentrated in the big cities (Lisbon, Porto and Setúbal) and among
• Your tax proposals will hit many middle income families No they won't. We can have a more efficient systems that enforces fiscal justice in a more rigorous way, while still making allowance for the basic expenses of family life. Our proposals are actually about reducing company tax evasion. • Companies could leave Portugal. There is a marginal risk. But companies obtain some competitive advantages when they set up office in Europe, particularly in Portugal. And these are what matters to business leaders. In Europe, the countries with the highest per capita income are also the most rigorous in their tax collection, and actually have the highest levels of taxation. • Communist Party leaders say they were the first to propose most of what the Left Block proposes... Some leaders of the PCP have a limitless arrogance. They want to claim copyright for ideas that don't belongs to them! On some questions, like decriminalisation of drugs, the PCP changed its position just before the electoral campaign, because they knew we would be putting forward a daring, honest policy in this area. • Your proposal for total decriminalisation could trivialise drug use. On the contrary! The current policy of complete prohibition is creating a trivialisation of drug use, under the mantle of secrecy. I hear that 800 tons of hashish were recently confiscated. But we all know what this means. The wars among the drug dealers allow these "discoveries", for the glory of the police.
For a few weeks the hashish disappears from the market, and heroine and cocaine flood in ato stimulate the passage of one market to another.* Source: Expresso, 16 October, 1999. Interview by João Garcia and Teresa Oliveira. International Viewpoint #317-318 January 2000 5