Anti-Austerity Geringonça in Portugal
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- Published on Friday, 05 May 2017 23:00
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1409 .... May 6, 2017
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Anti-Austerity Geringonça in Portugal
Bruno Góis
A new word has arisen in the European political debate: Geringonça. This new Portuguese political term geringonça (contraption), refers to the current minority government of the Socialist Party (center-left) supported in the parliament by radical left parties. The name Geringonça was coined by its conservative critics but became popular and is also used by supporters.
Between 2012 and 2013, Portugal had massive popular demonstrations, the biggest since the revolutionary period of 1974/75. Half a million people in the streets in a country of 10 million inhabitants is quite a lot. The target of these demonstrations was the austerity policy of the Social Democratic Party (PSD)/People's Party (CDS) right-wing government and the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank... (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), commonly refered as the Troika. However, that popular wave hit an institutional barrier. Not even the political crisis of summer 2013, when the minor partner (CDS) of the right-wing coalition menaced to leave, could break down the government. Cavaco Silva -- the President of the Republic at the time -- had managed to sponsor a deal between the parties of the right-wing government (PSD/CDS) and the biggest opposition party (Socialist Party, center-left) in order to ensure the government of Passos Coelho to proceed until 2015.
The popular protests alongside with the trade unions were therefore defeated with that institutional solidity which prevented the PSD/CDS government from falling. This was followed by a harsh social peace living together with impoverishment and degradation of public services. At the same time we witnessed floods of emigration comparable to the times of the national liberation wars of the peoples that were under the Portuguese colonial power (1961-75).