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Ghost Dog

(16,881 posts)
2. What's worrying is that the president, because 'international finance' would react negatively,
Tue Oct 27, 2015, 04:40 AM
Oct 2015

has publicly suggested that such an anti-austerity government would be a threat to the 'national security' of the republic and so the democratically-expressed will of the people should be overridden. At the least he can resist with the pro-austerity minority while mandating a fresh election. At most, I suppose, he can suspend parliament and mobilise armed forces. But perhaps the president himself should be impeached...


"...Almost two thirds of the electorate (62%) – the combined votes of the Socialists, Left Bloc and Communists – voted against rightwing austerity policies, Costa has pointed out. But the president, a former leader of Passos Coelho’s Social Democratic party (PSD), has made it clear he has grave reservations about any Portuguese government propped up by what he described last week as an anti-European, hard-left faction...

...Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, last week described the prospect of a radical anti-austerity coalition in Portugal as “very negative” and Portuguese bond yields rose on Monday, signalling investor fears of a prolonged period of political instability that could damage Portugal’s still-fragile recovery... op. cit."


IMO, were Portugal to leave the eurozone (put perhaps preferably not the EU), switching to a national currency with favorable exchange and interest rates, and apply anti-austerity measures to invest to improve immediate and long-term social & environmental welfare, create employment and stimulate the domestic economy as well as exports, they would probably do well.
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