The last red flag of the hammer and sickle that has flown in recent years with pride and real political influence in Europe is shaking. The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) is facing the struggle for survival to such an extent that it has had to carry out a maneuver that goes against its essence, a change. It is true that health factors weighed heavily on the departure this month of the general secretary of the septuagenarian Jerónimo de Sousa, but it should not be ruled out at all that he tried to continue if things went well. And they are going fatally, with the historical minimum of 4.3% of the votes received in January 2021.
To resurface from the bleeding caused by the bear's embrace of his alliance with António Costa's socialists in the so-called geringonça of 2015, the PCP has just renewed itself, but generationally nothing more. There is a huge jump from the 75 years of Jerónimo de Sousa, known in Portugal simply as Jerónimo, to the 46 years of his successor, Paulo Raimundo, who has never held a relevant political position, compared to the career of his predecessor, a deputy since 1975.
However, Jerónimo de Sousa was the PCP general secretary for less time, 18 years, since his election in 2004 as a substitute for Carlos Carvalhas, who in turn was the heir to the legendary Álvaro Cunhal. The Lisbon newspaper Público pointed out that there are photographs of that relief, of the outgoing Carvalhas and the incoming De Sousa, in which Paulo Raimundo appears. He is not a newcomer, nor is he inexperienced. He is a hard-working apartatchik, a member of the smallest leadership body, although the party highlights his previous work, before becoming liberated decades ago. Thus, the generational renewal is as resounding as the, in principle, commitment to continuity. However, even in this obvious case, it is worth waiting because international politics abound in cases of heirs heading unexpectedly.
In this case, it would be more surprising than the election of Raimundo, to whom everything indicates that the progressive electoral debacle has paved him. That of 2021, which left several of the possible successors without a seat, such as the until then parliamentary leader, João Oliveira. He dropped from ten deputies in 2019 to six and came from 15 in 2015, on the 230 seats of the Assembly of the Republic.
Although at a distance from the first two, the PCP could be placed on the historical podium of communist forces in NATO countries. It is a ranking from another time, in which the trimmed Portuguese branch is almost what remains of him, presenting himself with a green vase match. It is led by the Italian Communist Party (PCI). In 1976, he obtained 35% of the votes and 228 of the 630 deputies. With the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the PCI was refounded and ended up giving rise to what is now the Democratic Party, while its authentic communist split is marginalized, without deputies.
The French Communist Party (PCF), the second on the historic podium that could be drawn on Moscow's Red Square, won just 2.4% of the votes this year, but won 12 deputies out of 577, within Nupes, the coalition of Jean-Luc Melenchon. Just after World War II, the PCF was several times the most voted force, with a ceiling of 28% in 1946.
Although it had a great influence on the carnation revolution, the PCP never got that far. Its maximum was 18.8% in 1979, which is almost double the record of the Communist Party of Spain. It controls the largest Portuguese union, the CGT, and has had historical electoral and municipal strongholds in Alentejo and on the outskirts of Lisbon, although its decline is also observed here.
In this century it had to compete in the same space with the Bloco de Esquerda, a more modern force, in a post-Marxist line, than the PCP, but the latter resisted with over 8% of the votes. He repeated and repeated results by tables, as if passed from father to son.
Now the Bloco is also fatal, sunk like the PCP. Both paid for their 2021 decision to overthrow Costa's budget, which, after incorporating them into the governance game for the first time in 2015, has eaten them up, until obtaining an absolute majority. Seen in this way, the alliance was ruinous, however, after the brutal adjustments of the troika, a turn to the left was imposed, since the latter had a majority. Now, the PCP has recovered its speech from before 2015. The classic thing would be for it to try to survive by castling.
