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The voice of Portugal The results of the Portuguese elections prove once more the folly of judging Portugal by street dramas in Lisbon. After the botched up counter-coup of 11 March, observers predicted a swing to the left at the polls. In fact, 70 per cent of the vote went to the moderates, with a strong lead for Dr Soares’ Socialists who resemble the Labour Party here. The Popular Democratic Party (ppd ) technocrats followed on, with the Centre Democratic Socialist (cds) “Tories” trailing far behind.
newspapers, puts the press under state control). But the people as a whole have not rejected the mfa as such. Its heroic revolutionary role retains a good deal of its magic. Its leaders, albeit confused, are still men of intelligence and integrity.
The Communists, with a passable 13 per cent, had also wooed the voters with a far from extremist presentation. Pereira de Moura’s Marxist Portuguese Democratic Movement (.MDP), whose founders (including himself) had eclipsed Dr Soares in the half-free election of 1969, ended up this time with 4 per cent. The remaining left-wing groups, including the Catholic Marxists, shared the crumbs. Dr Soares is a man of high prestige and his campaigning was intensive and ubiquitous. He is, however, no great intellect. As Foreign Minister last year he was outmanoeuvred step by step in his talks with the African nationalists. What the voting means is simply that, at base, most Portuguese are centrists.
The Armed Forces Movement (mfa) is already impatient with party politics. It had urged electors to show a preference for itself by casting a blank vote. The bishops, more influential than some think, notably in the north, opposed this invitation. The mfa had hoped for a 40 per cent blank vote. They got seven.
It all sounds cut and dried, but nothing is simple in Portugal. The result undoubtedly counters some of the mfa policies: the gradual bid for a one-party State; the Movement’s recent dictation of a pre-emptive Constitution that nullifies the new assembly’s purpose; the supremacy of the Revolutionary Council, guaranteed for at least three years; some aspects of the government’s nationalisation measures (the seizure of the banks, which largely own the
The left-wing parties, too, however slight their voting strength, continue to be the tail that wags the dog. They retain their hold on the unions and much of local government, and could bring the country to a standstill. Many of those serving under Marxist colours are Catholics moved by a Third World outlook. They look for their sources, not to Rerum Novarum, but to the theology of liberation and the support they discern for it in Octogesimo Adveniens. The bishops, before the elections, forbade Catholics to vote for systems hostile to the Christian view of the nature of man. They named no names, and left it to individuals to decide where the rule applied. A nod is as good as a wink? Or a realistic understanding that labels like Marxist mean too many things or nothing at all today?
As to the mfa, it is easy to moralise. It certainly seems to be talking the language of Salazar Who was put in power by the army and stayed for 40 years. The Movement shares the former dictator’s disgust with party bickering, his tutorial finger-wagging and distrust of popular choice, the sending of dissentients to detention, the promise of democracy never fulfilled. Four points must, however, be made.
First, it has to be understood that Portugal is not trying to choose between established dogmas, either of the right or the left. It is trying to forge a do-it-yourself solution which is, above all, Portuguese, indigenous and original. The army officers involved are largely of the people, not the aristocratic generals of the past. They feel themselves to be truly representative, more so than any party. Thus they can say, without blushing, that the process of socialising the country must go on, whatever the voters choose.
Secondly, the fear of party strife is rooted in history.
