A crushing majority of Portuguese polled in the run-up to elections coming in just over a month’s time says they don’t even like the ‘alternatives’ to the current government.
In a result which shows how certain PS Socialists are for a victorious return, the poll conducted by study company Pitagórica shows people are even more disillusioned with the traditional centre-right parties than they were a month ago.
The PSD’s leader Rui Rio has been falling in popularity since he took up his position. Pitagórica’s new poll simply affirms that he has been the party’s worst choice for many years.
As reports agree, these results all give the PS “reasons to smile”, although there is the tiny cloud that even the PS has dropped one percentage point in popularity since July.
In terms of numbers, the latest poll has given support for the PS government’s performance a resounding 53%, with only 9% of the 1500 nationals polled saying anything positive about the centre-right PSD and/ or CDS parties.
On the wider sphere, Reuters has reported that prime minister António Costa has ‘ruled out a coalition after the October election’, even if his party falls short of a parliamentary majority.
The current status quo involving the backing of far-left parties (PCP and Bloco de Esquerda) is set to persist, with possibly further allies in the form of PAN (People Animals Nature party) which has been an unofficial ally for most of the last four years.
Indeed Reuters dubs PAN “a potential new kingmaker” which “recently won a seat in the European Parliament and, according to some polls, could take 4% of the vote in the Oct. 6 election”.
Reuters explains to win an absolute majority, PS Socialists would need to poll at least 42% of the country’s votes.
A curious aspect however of the latest Pitagórica poll is that despite the government’s bid to show it was ‘ready and prepared’ for the last truckers’ strike, nationals are divided over how they feel the crisis was handled.
Says Observador, “almost as many Portuguese think the government did well as those that think it didn’t”.
In other words, the tactics apparently chosen with the elections in mind ‘didn’t get the necessary results’.
As for the question on who people sympathised with in the struggle, 31% were on the side of truckers and only 9% on the side of employers association ANTRAM.
A new ‘strike’ on overtime and weekends is due to start on Sunday September 7 and run for three weeks.
