“An absolute majority is not absolute power. » Renewed on Sunday January 30 at the head of the Portuguese government with a comfortable majority of 117 deputies out of 230 in Parliament, Antonio Costa – the leader of the Portuguese Socialist Party – has undertaken to lead “a majority open to dialogue”.
“Sharp, fine politician, outstanding tactician”
It is only the second time that a left-wing government finds itself in Parliament with a majority that will no longer oblige it to make permanent compromises. The first time was in 2005, under the leadership of the then socialist prime minister, José Sócrates.
Antonio Costa is “sharp, fine politician, outstanding tactician”, describes Yves Léonard, teacher at Sciences Po and author of a very comprehensive History of contemporary Portugal (1). “A real fox of politics”, says a European diplomatic source in Lisbon.
→ ANALYSIS. In Portugal, the socialist Antonio Costa wins the legislative elections
His career is proof of this: in the 1990s, he was Minister of Parliamentary Affairs in the minority government of Antonio Guterres (the current Secretary General of the United Nations), forcing him into permanent negotiations with other political parties. “He has a very strong political sense, he does not show his emotions”, addsYves Leonard. Except this Sunday evening, January 30, where his joy at having obtained the majority he demanded from the Portuguese was not feigned.
Antonio Costa fell into the political cauldron at a very young age. Born in Lisbon on July 17, 1961, his father, the writer Orlando da Costa, an intellectual and anti-fascist activist, was from Goa in India (a former Portuguese colony), and his mother, Maria Antónia Palla, was one of the first women journalists in the country. After the divorce of his parents when he was very young, he was introduced alongside his mother to the political life of the post-democratic transition.
In 1975, at the age of 14, he joined the Socialist Youth (JS). Then he studied law where one of his professors at the Catholic University of Lisbon, at the time, was none other than the current right-wing president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who already judged him “lively and promising”.
He stands up to the “European troika”
As a lawyer, Antonio Costa held various ministerial posts in all Portuguese socialist governments between 1997 and 2007, and then became mayor of Lisbon from 2007 to 2015. propelled to power… following an election he had nevertheless lost. In contrast to the previous right-wing government, he stands up to the “European troika”, which has imposed a drastic and socially painful regime on the country.
Antonio Costa takes the opposite view and increases the minimum wage and pensions. “His government can claim to have restored the economy with a balanced budget”, says political scientist Antonio Costa Pinto. And Portugal is one of the good students of the European Union, which granted it 16 billion euros as part of the post-Covid recovery budget.
If he can legitimately see life in pink, Antonio Costa must meet many challenges, such as that of reviving the birth rate in this aging country, but also convincing the diaspora and especially young people to return to the country to participate in its development and recover the standard of living of those who, with a minimum wage of €700, are experiencing difficult end of the month.