PORTUGAL’S LEFT reacted angrily yesterday after the president asked pro-austerity parties to form a minority
government.

The outgoing coalition of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the CDS People’s Party lost its parliamentary majority in the October 4 elections, being reduced to 107 seats out of 230.

Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho’s government became unpopular after it implemented an EU-dictated programme of savage austerity cuts in return for a €78 billion (£56bn) debt bailout.

The anti-austerity Socialist Party (PS), Left Bloc (BE), Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and Ecologist Party (PEV) won a total of 122 seats and are willing to form a coalition administration.

But on Thursday evening, President Anibal Cavaco Silva asked the PSD-CDS alliance to form a minority government, flying in the face of the popular mandate for a new government.

He claimed he could not give power to parties opposing Portugal’s membership of the euro — a reference to the Communists and Left Bloc, who hold 15 and 19 seats respectively to the Socialists’ 86.

“Out of the EU and the eurozone, Portugal’s future would be catastrophic,” Mr Cavaco Silva claimed on Thursday, insisting that Portugal risked losing what it had gained after four years of belt-tightening.

Mr Passos Coelho, who leads the PSD, began forming his new cabinet yesterday.

But the opposition vowed to use their majority to bring down his government by voting against its four-year policy plan.

The government has said more austerity measures are needed on top of four years of cuts to pay, pensions and public services which, along with tax rises, have provoked mass strikes and protests.

PS secretary-general Antonio Costa accused the president of triggering “a pointless political crisis.”

He said Mr Cavaco Silva’s decision was “unacceptable” and only postponed the inevitable victory of the left.

PCP parliamentary group president Joao Oliveira said the decision showed an “absolute contempt” for the will of the Portuguese people.

He added that it revealed the president’s “total lack of impartiality” and disrespect for the constitution.