António Costa is the new leader of the opposition Partido Socialista and is in poll position to become the next Prime Minister.
The current socialist leader António José Seguro was soundly beaten by Costa, the mayor of Lisbon, in a battle held to elect the next PS candidate for the position of future prime minister.
António Costa won nearly 68% of the 180,000 votes cast by party members last Sunday and he now leads the party into the May 2015 general election.
The diplomatic Costa said that these primaries "did not defeat anyone, but are a victory for all PS sympathisers."
The new Socialist leader said that Portugal starts "a new and decisive step" and said that September 28, 2014 "is the first day of a new majority government. This is the first of the final days of the current government. "
António José Seguro, who only managed just over 31% of the vote, resigned as promised, shocked at the scale of his defeat, “I keep to my word, today I step down as the secretary-general of the PS. It was an honour to serve Portugal,”
It was the first time in Portugal that a party has held an internal election to select a candidate for future prime minister, should it win the next election of course.
In the Algarve, Costa gained over 80% of the votes, a percentage beaten only by the Açores figure of 87%. In fact there was only one region in Portugal that voted by a majority for Seguro, that was Guarda.
António Costa could be the fourth Partido Socialista prime minister, the last one was Francophile José Sócrates who served himself for six years to 2011 when he pootled off to France to indulge his taste for fine dining, having signed the documents that invited the Troika to fund the country.
Comments
Would you rather have PDS again? ...PS>PDS>PS>PDS... People don't seem to realize that it's always the same sour soup they're eating, 4 years from the PS' bowl, 4 years from the PDS' one - but the soup is the same one! A REAL change has nothing to do with this swinging from PS to PDS and viceversa, but people fear the left parties, they believe Stalin or Lenin would get out of their grave and grab them... Let's choose a party that wants to get out from EU and NATO - and Portugal will resuscitate!
The party has to win the election first Karel. If it does, which is likely, it will not have a majority, leading to another coalition or a party unable to legislate
a socialist again !!!!! Each time socialists took the power the country was more plummed, there were big scandals and corruption peaked till the sky (see the example of Socrates). Nice expectations for Portugal!