It has been 26 years since Portugal has had a prime minister who finishes the last term
Fragility, your name is prime minister, you could write William Shakespeare today in Portugal. Almost four centuries after “Hamlet” (from which an opening sentence of this text is stolen, adapting), the tragedy is the impermanence of the heads of government in our country. Since Aníbal Cavaco Silva that no prime minister ends his last term. Nor António Costa, if Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa confirms the announced dissolution of the Parliament, after the unpublished lead from the State Budget this Wednesday in the late afternoon.
Quoting Shakespeare adapting it to circumstances is a commonplace in Western Europe – for days to come Paulo Rangel declaimed that “this will not just be a winter of our discontent, it will be a winter of our freezing” (an evocation of “Ricardo III”). The bard is also an inspiration for the dramatization of power games. Inclusive politicians.
Let’s go back to the 21st century: it is necessary to go back to the 20th century to find a Portuguese prime minister who has completed his last term. All others left before: António Guterres, Durão Barroso, Pedro Santana Lopes, José Sócrates, Pedro Passos Coelho and now António Costa.
Cavaco Silva (PSD) was prime minister between November 1985 and October 1995, then completing his second absolute majority. Serious in this data obtained by António Guterres (PS), who abruptly interrupted his second term, in 2002, in the wake of a defeat in municipal changes, in a crisis that would become known as “the swamp”, an expression then used by the socialist to justify his decision.
New Changes, New Prime Minister: José Manuel Durão Barroso (PSD), who would be in office for just over two years, then resigning to lead the European Commission. No installation, series obtained by Pedro Santana Lopes (PSD), which would be just a few months after the President of the Republic Jorge Sampaio, in one of the shortest terms ever, from July 2004 to March 2005.
That’s when José Sócrates (PS) wins the updates, with the first (and until now only) absolute majority for the Socialist Party. Socrates he would resign midway through his second term following the lead in Parliament of the so-called PEC 4, officially ending its term in June 2011.
Pedro Passos Coelho (PSD) would gain as an update this year, constituting a government in coalition with Paulo Portas (CDS), and would regain legislative advantages in 2015, and was sworn in by the President of the Republic Cavaco Silva. It lasted less than a month: the government program would fail in Parliament – Steps fall and António Costa assumes a head of government with a left-wing majority agreement in Parliament. Coast Won as online in 2019 for the second term, which ended today.
After the end of the State Budget proposal – something that had never happened in Portugal -, it is expected that the President of the Republic will carry out a threat to dismiss the Assembly of the Republic. This will contradict the availability of Coast remain in office, after ensuring that he does not resign and forwarding the decision to Marcelo.
António Costa he has already announced that he will compete in the next preview, which has no data set yet, and is expected to take place in early 2022. The still prime minister has only one way to avoid a repetition of the “tragedy” of all prime ministers since Cavaco Silva and fulfilling his last term: it means fulfilling not this one, but a next term – it means winning as before.
Final note: do you know how many prime ministers before Cavaco Silva ended their last term in democracy in constitutional governments? None.
PRIME MINISTERS OF THE LAST DECADES
Aníbal Cavaco Silva, Prime Minister from November 6, 1985 to October 28, 1995.
António Guterres, Prime Minister from October 28, 1995 to April 6, 2002.
José Manuel Durão Barroso, Prime Minister from April 6, 2002 to July 17, 2004.
Pedro Santana Lopes, Prime Minister from 17 July 2004 to 12 March 2005.
José Sócrates, Prime Minister from March 13, 2005 to June 21, 2011
Pedro Passos Coelho, Prime Minister from June 21, 2011 to November 30, 2015
António Costa, Prime Minister from November 2015 to…October 2021?