Just as pundits predicted, the ‘political crisis’ that saw PM António Costa address the nation on Friday evening, threatening to resign, appears already to be ‘fizzling out’.
Centre right parties who initially teamed up with the ‘radical left’ to vote in favour of costly demands by the country’s teachers (click here) are described as ‘going into reverse’.
CDS leader Assunção Cristas has announced that her party will only continue to back the proposal if various provisos – rejected when the vote was taken – are brought on board.
Those provisos involve the economy being strong enough to fund the €600 million-plus that this vote implies, and certain conditions on how teachers are to receive their frozen ‘back pay’.
Says Expresso this Sunday morning, “it’s the first sign that the announced political crisis is unlikely to happen…”
A note sent to the country’s media by Assunção Cristas stressed: “Either parliament accepts our conditions or we will not approve any payment. Either parliament accepts the requirements of our proposal, and they become law, or the CDS will not give its vote to any pledge. A CDS government would never make unconditional negotiations”.
Cristas’ stand is expected to be followed by a similar declaration from the PSD – equally keen to show the country’s electorate that it has no zeal to ‘wreck the economy’, even if the teachers’ ‘cause’ is a valid one.
The statement sent to media outlets by the CDS nonetheless took every opportunity to swipe at the government, accusing it of orchestrating lies and making the most (in political capital) of this convoluted issue – but the bottom line is that the ‘victory’ briefly felt by the nation’s teachers is rapidly fading.
