A BATTERED incumbent right-wing coalition emerged the victor of yesterday’s Portuguese general election, but facing a larger anti-austerity bloc in parliament.

Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho’s Portugal Ahead, comprising the centre-right Social Democratic Party (PDS) and the Christian democrat CDS-PP, was declared the winner but was unable to reach a majority with only 38.5 per cent of the vote.

The centre-left opposition Socialist Party (PS) was the night’s greatest loser, despite adding an extra 12 seats to its parliamentary group.

Yet the biggest surprise came from the results of both the CDU coalition of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Greens and the anti-capitalist Left Bloc, which more than doubled its presence in the Portuguese Assembly.

After the results were announced, PCP general secretary Jeronimo de Sousa praised his party’s result as “progress in its vote which in the near future will be part of the political and social life of the country.”

He said that the party’s increased vote share confirmed the “determination and coherence of the CDU in combat against the injustice and struggle for a better life that very shortly the evolution of political life will need.”

The Communists were surprised, but sympathetic toward the unprecedented vote for the Left Bloc, which more than doubled its number of MPs. Many attribute its success to a decline in support for the PS.

“People recognised our work, recognised the contribution we gave to this electoral campaign and for that reason we have an absolutely historical result,” Lisbon Left Bloc MP Mariana Mostagua told the Star.

“It’s important to us and we feel reinforced by that vote.

“What we now need is to guarantee that we will fulfill our promise to the end — of doing all we can to stop new austerity policies.”

But both the Left Bloc and the CDU lamented the victory of the right after four years of austerity and a continued growth of Portugal’s sovereign debt.

The Communists were nonetheless pleased that the results showed Portugal a Frente to be fragile and echoed the Left Bloc in denying the legitimacy of a new PSD/CDS-PP coalition.