A Bird Uncaged

I feel like a bird that has been let I out of its cage." So said Portugal's Socialist Party Leader Mario Soares last week, after emerging from the country's presidential palace in Belem. In fact, the jowly, amiable politician, known as "Chubby Cheeks" among his countrymen, had just been fired as Premier by Portugal's President, General Antonio Ramalho Eanes. After two years as Portugal's first freely elected Premier since the 1974 April revolution, Soares will leave office as soon as Eanes appoints another Premier. And when he goes, Soares will take the 11 Socialist members of his 16-member coalition Cabinet with him. At week's end, the country was virtually without a functioning government.

Soares had been walking a political tightrope since last December. At that time, the National Assembly voted no confidence in Soares' moderate leftist policies. The Premier survived, but only because the conservative-leaning Center Democratic Party (C.D.S.) agreed to form a governing coalition with the Socialists, who held 102 seats in the 263-member assembly. Last month the three C.D.S. Cabinet ministers threatened to resign unless Soares got rid of Agriculture Minister Luis Saias, a former Communist who the Centrists maintained was dragging his feet in restoring to its original owners lands seized by peasants during the turbulent 1974 revolution. The C.D.S. ministers also wanted sweeping modifications in a proposed national program of socialized medicine. When Scares refused, the dissidents carried out their threat. President Eanes felt he had no choice this time but to fire his Premier.

Political life has not been easy lately for either the Socialists or the Centrists. Popular discontent has been rising steadily. Inflation in Portugal during the first six months of 1978 has climbed to an annual rate of 21%. To get approval from the International Monetary Fund for $750 million in loans from a consortium of Western countries, Scares' government agreed to strict austerity measures that have drastically raised the price of food, transportation, fuel and other necessities. The wages of urban industrial workers have barely managed to stay ahead of the spiraling prices; rural workers are now worse off in terms of purchasing power than they were before the 1974 revolution. Nor are economic matters expected to improve soon. This year, to meet IMF austerity guidelines, Portugal was expected to limit economic growth to 3% vs. last year's 7%. Meanwhile, a ballooning bureaucracy and costly nationalizations of industry have forced Soares to impose stiff tax increases.

The Centrists, meanwhile, have been criticized by their key constituencies--conservative Catholics of the north, businessmen and private landholders--for following the Socialist line. The C.D.S. was forced, in effect, to make its move against Soares' government in order to fend off growing competition from other political parties, notably the increasingly conservative Social Democrats controlled by Francisco Sa Carneiro.

After he was dismissed, Soares said he felt that his governing responsibilities and those of the cabinet were ended. But Eanes promptly issued a decree ordering Soares and the cabinet to stay in their posts as a caretaker government until another was formed.

Soares had warned that the Socialists will not participate in any new coalition, thereby blocking the possibilities for any other multiparty government. Eanes' most likely option is to appoint an interim "presidential" government to hold office until scheduled national elections in 1980. If he does that, the leading contender for the Premier's job will be Colonel Mario Firmino Miguel, a political independent who served as Soares' Defense Minister. Firmino Miguel almost became Premier in 1974, when he was the choice of then President Antonio de Spinola, but was forced aside by leftist army officers who eventually ousted Spinola. Now Firmino Miguel may get a second chance --something almost as novel in Portuguese politics as having a stable elected government. qed

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.