PORTUGAL: PROBLEMS OLD & NEW
Maxwell, Kenneth
For Portugal the analogies were almost always wrong. It was not Czechoslovakia in 1948. Throughout 1974 and into mid-1975, the Communists held many of the key positions of power: in the...
...The average farm holding in the north is only 2 hectares, and in the center 3.5 hectares...
...1976, revealed a remarkable stability of voting patterns— remarkable because the context within which the elections were held had totally changed...
...They had established themselves as the key element in any political equation...
...Neither can the parties on the right, the Popular Democrats (with 24 percent of the vote) and the Social Democratic Center (with 16 percent) form a majority of the right...
...Practical problems abound and require government action...
...Already the coalition of "operationals" and those democratic socialist officers that coalesced around Major Melo Antunes to bring Col...
...This residual power is a built-in justification for future military intervention into the country's political life...
...On top of these grave maladjustments there now are some 600,000 refugee settlers from the former colonies, living on state handouts...
...After March 1975, the banks, insurance companies, and much of industry were in the hands of the state...
...He did not do so because he feared Portugal was Chile...
...Each of these parties represents a clearly defined regional constituency with differing and sometimes conflicting interests...
...Meanwhile, the members of the military right are more confident than ever...
...The coming months, therefore, will be the most critical time for democracy in Portugal...
...238 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS PORTUGAL'S FIRST DEMOCRATIC GOVERNM ENT faces enormous problems that are threefold: political, economic, and military...
...the bases of power of the old oligarchy—in the great industrial and banking monopolies and the landed estates in the south— had been destroyed...
...The revolutionary council, although absorbed in effect into the General Staff, retains key powers, including a veto or "review" over the "constitutionality" of actions by the National Assembly...
...Thus, after two turbulent years the parameters have been at last established...
...The election returns, however, make the formation of a viable government majority in the national assembly extremely difficult...
...When attempts at countercoups were made, in September 1974 and March 1975, the left was too strong, too united to be broken—and the right was routed...
...Vasco Gonsalves down last summer is badly split...
...And there are already some 400,000 to 500,000 men and women without jobs...
...But despite this dramatic reversal of circumstances, the Socialist party again gained a clear plurality...
...The army could not act for the right...
...The problem in part lies in the manner in which victory is won...
...he possessed the means...
...In April 1976 the radical left had been deposed and the colonels who had defeated them on November 25 held the reins of power...
...In large part their economic viability was predicated on an expanding and prosperous middle-class consumer...
...But in the center and the north of the country the small landowners are terrified of the spread of the expropriations that took place in the south...
...And each coalition would run the risk of causing splits within the Socialist party, since there are strong and articulate right and left wings, often at loggerheads and only tenuously mediated by Mario Soares's personal leadership...
...There is some genius to the process, but it does have its drawbacks...
...Since the presidency under the constitution is the lynchpin of the new system, the struggle for that pivotal position has reentered the realm of civilian-military and intramilitary factionalism...
...But it is there and must be faced...
...All of this leaves political options confused and gives added emphasis to the presidential contest scheduled for June...
...But appearances in Portugal are deceptive...
...It was these small and medium proprietors who formed the backbone of last summer's violent antiCommunist riots...
...The November 1975 "victory" of the colonels is no more secure than that of the Gongalvistas nine months before...
...The army, which last year talked of itself as "a revolutionary vanguard" and a "movement of national liberation," this year praised "hierarchy" and "discipline...
...In the industrial sector, fundamental and possibly painful measures are no less pressing...
...But if such a path is to be followed again, it is difficult to see how it will work without whittling away the gains of the industrial workers who have so far been the main beneficiaries of the changes set in motion after April 25, 1974...
...Most critical perhaps, though least discussed, is the rural crisis...
...There was a slight falloff in support (36 percent as to 38 percent a year before...
...Above all, it perpetuates partial solutions under the appearance of dramatic reversals...
...But some reforms are essential here too and will in time have to be faced...
...The two alternatives to a minority Socialist government—a coalition to the left with the PCP, or a coalition to the right with the Popular Democrats, both viable majorities in the Assembly—present major domestic and international complications...
...The question now is, can social democracy work...
...There is great need for irrigation, the organization of distribution, for fertilizers, technical assistance, the planning for improved crop yields, and the replacement of lost breeding stock...
...Yet the Socialists remained the only party with broad based national support...
...An alliance with the PCP will be strenuously opposed by Washington and the West Germans, whose active support for the floundering economy is increasingly essential...
...The technique lies in mustering irresistible power while avoiding confrontation...
...It seems implausible that a country of some 8.5 million people can easily absorb such a burden...
...he talked like a reformer, he behaved like an authoritarian...
...While most expected revolution and some counterrevolution, what emerged was the most unlikely hybrid of all: social democracy...
...In the political realm, the two elections, for the Constituent Assembly on April 25, 1975, and for the Assembly of the Republic on April 25...
...A coalition with the Popular Democrats (long-time supporters of a liberal capitalist solution to Portugal's economic problems), a party by no means committed to nationalizations and land reform, would almost inevitably-risk confrontation with organized labor and the Communistdominated rural areas of the south...
...With the end of its empire, Portugal's traditional industries—cotton and woolen textiles—lost both their cheap raw materials and protected markets...
...In fact, the settlements among the military factions are bound to be cosmetic, achieved by temporary coalitions formed to oppose a threat that, once overcome, simultaneously removes their reason for being...
...But these factories employ some 200,000 workers...
...Those who win are those who through maneuver, intrigue, and sometimes sheer bluff provoke their opponents into premature action...
...Again, as on the political and the economic fronts, Portugal's problems within the military are far from over...
...It is by no means certain how in the long run the military would react to a failure to solve the accumulating political and economic problems that face the country...
...With Western Europe no longer absorbing Portuguese immigrants, most of whom came from these regions, dangerous population pressure could build up...
...Cunhal's critics to the left at the time called him a "social fascist...
...The final problem, no less grave, lies with the military, which remains a potent political force in Portuguese affairs...
...The modern industrial sector, COMMENTS AND OPINIONS 239 developed in the 1960s, was based on oil, petrochemicals, and motor vehicle assembly plants (with U.S., West European, and Japanese ownership...
...After all the PCP, not the PCI, was the first West European Communist Party, in October 1974, to repudiate the phrase "the dictatorship of the proletariat...
...The right was muted, wounded, waiting, yet it did not have the strength to impose its will...
...The test, far from being over, has just begun...
...it was too fragmented and, until November 1975, dominated by its leftist elements...
...Personalities change, reputations rise and fall, activists disappear or reemerge from political prisons, but beyond that, transformation is more verbal than real...
...Nor is it likely that the PCP, which has increased its vote (from 12 to I5 percent), will join a majority coalition with the anti-Communist Popular Democrats and Social Democratic Center against the Socialists, though a tactical alliance on individual issues is not impossible...
...Throughout 1974 and into mid-1975, the Communists held many of the key positions of power: in the government, the local administration, the unions, the press, and they also seemed to have the support of key elements in the army...
...The old textile mills were regarded as antiquated and undercapitalized before the crisis broke, and now their outlook is even bleaker...
...Yet, during that critical period, Cunhal was sweet reasonableness...
...That at least has been decided, embodied in a Constitution and legitimized by two successive national elections...
...These new enterprises are now buffeted by the inflation in oil prices and the changed social conditions in Portugal...
...The solution of many of Portugal's economic problems will require major political decisions, and these also could provoke major divergences between the parties, especially between the Popular Democrats and the Communists...
...Cunhal indeed could have seized power...
...They have never abandoned hope for a comeback and regard the whole constitutional settlement as a "Marxist" plot...
...In the south there are chaotic conditions in the wake of often preemptive seizures of large estates by Communist-led landless workers...
...There had been after all a revolution of sorts...
...In April 1975, the radical military leadership closely allied to the PCP was in the ascendancy...
...But Portugal was no more Chile than it was Czechoslovakia...
...q 240 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS...
...It is clear now that no general coalition can function long without the Socialists...
Vol. 23 • July 1976 • No. 3
