Portugal’s coalition government has received a second chance after the approval of a confidence motion in Parliament.
The votes from the coalition ruling, formed by the PSD and CDS-PP parties, were enough to guarantee the win and overthrow the opposition votes of the PS, PCP, BE and “Os Verdes”.
At the end of the voting, while members of the coalition party were celebrating their victory, spectators present in the Parliament’s gallery silently got on their feet and placed clown noses on their face, demonstrating their dissatisfaction at the results. The protestors were then escorted outside by the security forces.
Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said before the vote that the motion would confirm the government’s strength and give it a boost after a period of “clarification” in recent weeks.
He added that Portugal must look to the future in unison, with the knowledge that future governments will come but will see their actions restricted due to the current crisis and that the time for re-launching the country’s economy has arrived, with measures like lowering the IRC tax to 17% on the government’s agenda until 2018.
