António Costa will remain as the man who presided over the geringonça, a Portuguese word that could be translated as artifact. It was the minority government of the Socialist Party which, with the parliamentary support of the Communists and the Left Bloc, governed Portugal between 2015 and 2021. It was an impossible solution within the framework of Portuguese political history, since, from the so-called "hot summer" of 1975, after the revolution of 1974, had created an insurmountable gap between the socialists, on the one hand, and the communists and left-wing radicals, on the other. In addition, it should be borne in mind that, in the general elections of 2015, the Socialist Party of Costa had come second. In the vocabulary of some Spanish politicians, who are always so vehement, the Lusitanian disgrace would be an illegitimate government.
The slur worked well though. The Portuguese public got used to seeing Costa as the great artist of pacts: the political acrobat capable of obtaining impossible agreements. Costa was the solver of all problems. It worked like a lubricant capable of unstuck machinery. At a famous congress discussing the modernization of public administration, Costa, who proposed bold solutions considered impossible, presented a flying cow, a toy he had bought at a London airport and kept for ten years because, for him, it was an inspiring amulet. As he said, that object represented that "even cows not flying is something impossible".
That vision of Costa as a prodigious magician of the pact – the man capable of giving wings to cattle – also spread to Europe, where the art of creating agreements is so necessary. This Portuguese, who seemed to be made of indestructible bronze, a dense, resistant alloy, became one of the names that sounded the most, in recent times, to be the future president of the Council of Europe. Also as a result of this positive image, Costa obtained an absolute majority in the Lusitanian general elections of 2022. After this result, everything seemed to be freeways in his political future.
And suddenly this seemingly indestructible character collapsed over the course of yesterday morning. A few hours were enough to sweep off the stage a figure who seemed to be a guarantee of stability for his country, and also for the EU. The absolute majority has worked as a curse for him. For months, the trickle of cases of alleged corruption within António Costa's socialist government has been constant. Yesterday, the pipes burst and Portuguese citizens found their homes flooded. Among those arrested preventively are the prime minister's chief of staff, Vítor Escária, and also one of Costa's best friends, Lacerda Machado; among those charged is the Minister of Infrastructure, João Galamba, someone who is a veritable constellation of suspect black holes. At the beginning of the afternoon, an already wingless António Costa made his farewell speech, with elegant melancholy. Nothing weighs on his conscience, but, charged in the courts, he cannot continue to be prime minister.
What kryptonite has weakened the portent? In reality, the harmful materials have been others: green hydrogen, which will be produced in Sines, and lithium, a mineral found in the country, indispensable for contemporary batteries, and which has given rise to several dubious mining concessions. Dark deals have been made around these riches, in which Costa could be involved. In Portuguese society, the judiciary is a free verse. It has real autonomy, it does not depend on a political bloc to obey and you never know where it will end up. Many politicians accused in the media later ended up being acquitted or were not even tried. This is another important fact: the Lusitanian judicial storefronts are very colorful, but when it comes to the warehouse of the real stocks, the judges sometimes get lost along the way.
At the moment, the country is in a state of shock. There is a general bewilderment. European socialism has lost one of its pillars. The entire Iberian Peninsula has been transformed into a great carousel of instabilities. Today, Wednesday, the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, will listen to the parties with parliamentary representation. The Council of State will meet on Thursday, and at the end of Thursday itself, the president will address the country.
Most likely outcome: snap election.
