PORTUGAL RISING

By Mario Soares Reprint | | Print |

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LISBON, May 9 2007 (IPS) - Two years after the formation of the socialist government headed by Jose Socrates, Portugal is on the verge of overcoming the financial crisis that has beset it for six years — and as a result, the right-wing opposition –divided and without a leader– is furiously attacking both the government and the Socialist Party (PS), writes Mario Soares, ex-president and ex-prime minister of Portugal. In this article, Soares writes that the opposition fears that having successfully completed the unpopular but necessary task of cutting the budget deficit, the Socrates administration would move ahead with its programme of major progressive reforms designed to reduce the social inequalities that shame us and call attention to the social role of the state. Socrates passed reforms to simplify the bureaucracy and imposed profound changes in social security, health care, education, and justice. And he turned around the negative growth trend: in 2003, the last year of the conservative government that preceded Socrates\’, the economy shrank by 0.5 percent. Currently it is growing at 1.3 percent.

The opposition fears that having successfully completed the unpopular but necessary task of cutting the budget deficit, the government of Prime Minister Socrates would move ahead with its programme of major progressive reforms designed to reduce the social inequalities that shame us and call attention to the social role of the state.

The results of the Socrates administration’s financial housekeeping are already visible: in the last two years it has cut the deficit from 6.8 to 3.9 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) with a drastic restructuring of the public sector, in particular by holding down wages and eliminating privileges.

Socrates passed reforms to simplify the bureaucracy (in particular, the process of establishing a business, purchasing a house, and obtaining documents). He imposed profound changes in the social security system, health care, education, and justice. And he turned around the negative growth trend: in 2003, the last year of the conservative government that preceded Socrates’, the economy shrank by 0.5 percent. Currently it is growing at 1.3 percent.

Of course this isn’t the first crisis that the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS) has faced. It was founded in 1973 in the years of the Salazar dictatorship, which was ended by the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974. During the first month after the dictatorship was brought down, 100,000 people joined the PS, the party that went on to forge the Republic and that generated the force that contributed most to the equilibrium and moderation of the new democratic system.

Thus the PS developed the image among the Portuguese of being a party of the left, socialdemocratic, western –it was born at the height of the Cold War– pluralist, tolerant, and respectful of human rights and the rule of law that we wanted to establish –and did– once the 1976 Constitution was ratified.

Notwithstanding the respect that the captains of the April revolution deserve from us, the PS has always been a civilian party, opposed to anarcho-populist or totalitarian adventurism which became a serious threat in 1975. It was also always a party of socialism in freedom, as they said then, adept at the workings of market economy though subject to ethical and juridical rules that would reduce the inequalities that the market inevitably generates when left to its own devices.

The PS was always an open and plural party that spanned a vast range of ideological approaches. However, all elements came together during the conflicts of the ”hot summer” of 1975 and then with the responsibilities imposed once we took power in July 1976 under very difficult conditions. Because of this we were able in successive governments to resolve problems inherited from the past and weather structural crises, some of which –like this one– are extremely serious.

The PS became a political force that was essentially national and popular and well-rooted throughout the country; it deserved the vote of the responsible left and often of the centrists, as well as well-meaning people without clear party affiliation.

This explains what happened in the last legislative elections of February 2005 when the general secretary of the PS, Jose Socrates, lead the party to an absolute majority in parliament with 121 of 230 deputies, winning 45.03 percent of the vote. This gave the government the tools it needed to overcome the financial crisis and to open up the horizons of progress and sustainable development for Portugal in an international scene of great complexity, uncertainty, and insecurity. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)