António Guterres, the new head of the United Nations, has the best record on keeping electoral promises of Portugal’s prime ministers in the past 20 years.
Researcher Maria Belchior at Lisbon University, concluded that Portuguese governments between1995 and 2015, fulfilled about 60% of their pre-election promises written down in their official electoral manifestos.
Belchior says that the data collected contradicts the negative perception Portugal’s citizens have of their governments, as a high percentage of promises are kept.
The researcher warns that this is a straight percentage analysis and some promises that have not been kept, such a tax cuts or job creation, may have had a big effect on public opinion but little effect on her results.
Given this important caveat, from 1995 to 2015, successive governments fulfilled about 50% of their promises, with a further 10% fulfilled only partially.
The top performer was António Guterres, who fulfilled about 85% of the promises he made during his 1995-1999 administration.
Next was José Sócrates, with 80% of his promises fulfilled during his first term as prime minister (2005-2009).
Third is Pedro Passos Coelho, who during his four years in office, even with the interference of the Troika, fulfilled about 60% of his electoral promises.
The second Guterres government and the administrations of Durão Barroso and Santana Lopes report a poorer records with 45% and 30%, respectively. These administrations did not go the full term, which will have affected the percentages.
Despite popular opinion, Portuguese governments are among the better ones in Europe when it comes to fulfilling electoral promises but this does not stop them being the least trusted.
Ana Maria Belchior added that minority governments, especially António Guterres's first, do the best, "Minority governments, which have to negotiate, tend to perform particularly well on electoral promises and better than coalition governments."
