Legislature “can only last four years with deliberate, active, complicit coalition with main opposition parties“
Parliament is debating the government’s programme today, with the prime minister stating loud and clear that his executive cannot follow through without deliberate, active, complicit coalition between the two largest parties in opposition, CHEGA and PS Socialists.
‘Therein lies the rub’, in that neither of the two appear too ready to roll over.
Speaking in his capacity as candidate for the leadership of the PS, José Luís Carneiro has already accused the incoming government of having ‘plagiarised’ proposals from other parties – putting them into its own programme, without “a single word” to the parties involved. “This is not dialogue”, he stressed in parliament today; while CHEGA has said the equivalent of ‘unless this government does something for the health service, we will not tolerate it for very long…’
Putting his best foot forwards, the prime minister has ‘reaffirmed’ that “political stability is a task for everyone. This government is here to complete a legislature of four years. We all know, as do the people, that the legislature cannot last that long if the two major parties in opposition assume a deliberate coalition between themselves” (ie if the practice of tactical voting and pressure to topple the government persists, as it did in the last legislature – which ended in the fall of the government, snap elections and a catastrophic result for PS Socialists).
Thus, the stage is set: the government’s programme includes 80 measures, 27 of them from CHEGA, 25 from the PS, 16 from Iniciativa Liberal, six from LIVRE, two from PCP communists, two from PAN, and one from Bloco de Esquerda.
Parties can call it what they want, but it is the start of attempts at combined decision-making.
The debate on the new programme will go forwards today and tomorrow, after which there will be a vote (to accept it or not) and only then will the XXV (15th) Constitutional government take office. PCP communists have already presented a motion to reject the programme (they presented it before the programme was even presented), but the motion is not supported by CHEGA/ PS. ND
