This Sunday 6th October voters will head for the polls to elect Portugal’s 22nd Government since the Carnation Revolution of 1974, which overthrew a long-serving right-wing dictatorship.
Since 2015 the main parties of the Portuguese left – António Costa’s centre-left Partido Socialista (PS), the Partido Comunista (PCP), and the Bloco de Esquerda – Left Bloc (BE) - have been working together in an alliance mockingly labelled the Geringonca (“contraption”) by a right-wing politician at the start of the administration.
The irony rebounded: the Geringonca has turned out to be a remarkably stable and effective political machine, putting the left – whether under a PS overall majority, or a Geringonca II – on course for electoral victory whilst producing impressive economic results. Much of the stability may be attributed to a written agreement between the parties imposed by the then President, Aníbal Cavaco Silva.
