On 7 November the Portuguese public prosecutor’s office published an official communication announcing searches of the homes and offices of several people to investigate facts related to corrupt practices related to several recently announced and important investments.
Specifically, these concern the granting of concessions to explore for lithium at the Romano mine in Montalegre and Barraso mine in Boticas in North Portugal to the Portuguese Lusorecursos and British Savannah Resources companies, the project H2Sines for the production of hydrogen in Sines in South Portugal by a large capital consortium and for the construction of a “data centre” by the company Start Campus also in Sines.
The prosecutor’s statement further announced the immediate arrest of the chief of cabinet of the Prime Minister António Costa, of the mayor of Sines, who is a member of the governing Socialist Party (SP) and of administrators and lawyers of Start Campus, as well as declaring that the Minister of Infrastructure and the President of the Portuguese Environment Agency were formally suspects.
The statement ends by referring to the fact that during the investigation the name and authority of the Prime Minister had been invoked by the suspects. On the same day, Costa, who had served as Prime Minister for the last 8 years, resigned referring to the implications of the statement for his situation. President Marcelo accepted his resignation. The government had fallen.
A few days later, Marcelo announced that the official resignation of the government would only take place after the approval of the 2024 State Budget at the end of November and that there will be legislative/general elections on 10 March to form a new government.
The investigation is now called “Operation Influencer”. All the suspects are out of jail, the accusations of corruption have been dropped, and the suspects are only accused of the crime of influence peddling. But the image of the government and its party, the ‘Socialist’ Party has been badly damaged.
The actual degree of corruption of the businesses targeted by Operation Influencer is unclear. As are the precise roles of ministers and of Prime Minister Costa, the motivation of the public prosecutor’s office in launching a vague accusation against Costa, or even the latter’s readiness to resign.
However, the process of the government’s fall has laid bare other truths:
- The Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) and the false energy transition promoted by the European Union are the cause of multi-million euro disputes between the different sectors of the bourgeoisie, which favour lobbying and corruption, while disregarding social and environmental interests.
- The normal functioning of capitalist democracy relies on lobbying and influence peddling, whether legal or not. The capitalists discuss their interests with each other and with the representatives of the state, and the latter make decisions about our collective life according to these interests, as a committee for managing the business of the ruling class. This is shown by the processes around lithium mining, hydrogen production and export and the construction of a data centre, powered by mega-renewable energy plants, which although they are accompanied by favourable environmental impact statements, they promise to seriously damage the environment and peoples’ lives. Capitalism is only democratic for the few in whose hands are concentrated economic and political power. Corruption arises as a side effect of lobbying and as a consequence of this concentration of power. Only public ownership and workers’ control over production and new investments make it possible to avoid this concentration and have a true democracy that meets social and environmental needs.
- Since the public prosecutor’s indictments, the priority of state leaders has been to guarantee that foreign capital will maintain its investments. Costa’s speech on 11 November 11 was crystal clear on this point. Not a word for those suffering from inflation, the lack of decent affordable housing or the destruction of public services, but more than half an hour spent talking to investors, possibly at the request of the EU institutions. Costa wanted to give assurances that the investments targeted by the judicial investigation are safe, that lobbying works in Portugal and that the state will do everything it can to guarantee the accumulation of capital for these and future investors. This episode shows Portugal’s peripheral position in the EU, in this case essentially as an exporter of raw materials for European industries (lithium and hydrogen), and its subservience to foreign capital, especially to the EU’s strongest bourgeoisies.
The crisis of the PS government, unable to provide guarantees of stability for the capitalist class despite its absolute majority in parliament, has become clear. The last two years have been marked by the successive resignations of ministers after being involved in dirty deals, with even the President of the Republic being caught up in the case of undue favouritism at the biggest public hospital of Lisbon, the deterioration of public services and living conditions and the growth in the number of strikes and large demonstrations. In particular, the fact that the PS government has proved incapable of preventing the impact of strikes in the health and education sectors and the growing mobilisations for the right to housing must warn the ruling class.
These are the circumstances that led to the dissolution of Parliament after the approval of the State Budget for 2024 and the calling of legislative/general elections for 10 March, with the aim of making the institutions more credible and forming a less fragile government. However, the formation of a more stable government, better serving the common interests of the bourgeoisie is far from guaranteed, given the discrediting of its institutions. Neither the PS, with a new leader, nor the biggest right-wing party the ‘Social Democratic’ Party (SPD), which did not propose any alternative to the PS’s budget, seem able to win an absolute parliamentary majority.
As a result of the capitalist crisis, the radicalisation of reactionary sectors of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie and the preponderance of corruption in public discourse, the far-right party Chega is growing, attaining 17% in recent polls. It can’t be excluded that the PSD would ally itself with Chega to form a government. In the current context of impoverishment, whether a new government is based on a right-wing majority, or is a new Geringonça — the so-called “Contraption” — an alliance of the parliamentary left with the PS such as that that took place in 2015–2019 and, on a minor scale, in 2019–2021, led by Pedro Nuno Santos, the likely next leader of PS, or is formed by a centrist alliance of the PS and PSD, it will be a weak government.
Intensify the struggles
Whatever the composition of the next government, the willingness to fight shown throughout 2023 should not subside. The PS’s 2024 budget will be approved by a parliament on the verge of dissolution. That’s no problem for the Right which, despite voting against it, supports its policy. This is a surplus budget, that leaves completely untouched the stupendous profits that the banks and big companies made in 2022 and 2023. It is a budget which prioritises paying off the state debt and, above all, not increasing permanent spending, i.e. it favours the withering away of public services. It is a State Budget that lowers personal income tax (IRS), the most progressive tax, which does not affect 40 per cent of families earning less than 11,480 euros gross per year, but raises the regressive indirect taxes that affect the poorest the most. It doesn’t raise wages and pensions above inflation, it doesn’t solve the problems of access to housing, it doesn’t invest in public services and the careers of its professionals. Above all, it is yet another State Budget which helps big companies to maintain record profits, and which serves the interests of those who do business in housing, health and education.
Intensifying the labour and social struggle is the best way to prepare ourselves to put pressure on the next government, whatever it may be. But it is also the best weapon not to leave room for the growth of the far right. Chega has no solutions to the problems of the working class and the youth, and it can only find space for its discourse of division and repression when the social struggle, which actually points to demands and solutions, is not at the forefront of public life. The recent mobilisation of students and climate activists to expel Chega’s hate speech from the social sciences FCSH faculty in Lisbon shows that with unity and mobilisation we can take the stage away from the far right!
The current struggles against the budget, against the massacres in Palestine, against mining and projects that destroy the environment, of the various unions and economic sectors, of health and education professionals, for Vida Justa (a Just Life), for Casas para Viver (Homes to Live In) and for climate justice, must seek to organise and unite. About a year ago, the struggle in schools, proposed by the STOP union, showed the way forward with the formation of democratic strike committees and the unity and mobilisation of hundreds of thousands on the streets. But we want to be more organised and effective! The situation throughout 2023 shows the potential to unite struggles through a plan of cross-sector strikes that more effectively defend public services, wages and homes in good conditions for all.
For a workers’ alternative
The social and labour struggle is also the ground from which a workers’ political alternative must emerge, including to face the 10 March elections. We must be aware of the importance of fighting the growth of the far right and the possibility of a right-wing and far-right government and parliamentary majority, fighting on the streets and by voting for the parliamentary left. We should also warn that a new Geringonça, which seeks social peace and class conciliation, as Pedro Nuno Santos hopes, will not solve the real problems of the workers or the contradictions and barbarities of capitalism, and could even serve to stifle the struggles.
All those who have been struggling, including Bloco de Esquerda — the Left Block (BE) and Partido Comunista Português (PCP) must learn from the mistakes of Geringonça, reject class conciliation and seek to unite in a single front and constitute a real political alternative, around a programme that starts from the interests, demands and struggles of the working class and assumes a break with the capitalist logic of the need for profit and its institutions. This programme should be the minimum required for the possible viability of a future workers’ government, but also, and above all, the minimum for which we will not give up fighting in the coming period, with unity and democratic organisation, whatever the government. We propose that this programme includes:
- The cancellation of major projects that harm the environment.
- Rent control and affordable prices for essential goods! Price caps.
- The indexation of salaries and pensions above inflation, in the public and private sectors. Immediate increase of all wages by €1.5/hour.
- Minimum wages and pensions must be enough to live on: at least €1,000/month now!
- The progressive taxation of profits and large fortunes to finance investment in free public services and a fair transition: transport, crèches, schools, canteens, homes, housing and healthcare.
- Housing, health and education are rights, not commodities! Expropriation of property funds and agencies, big landlords and vacant houses, as well as big companies and health and education infrastructures.
- Massive public housing under the control of residents’ and workers’ committees: nationalisation of the big construction companies in order to rehabilitate, maintain and build quality, comfortable housing at affordable rents, guaranteeing decent housing for all.
- We don’t control what we don’t own: nationalisation of the distribution and energy sectors under democratic control: for price control, 100% renewable and affordable energy.
- Zero interest on first home loans. Nationalisation of the financial sector to control interest, credit and capital flows and to finance socially necessary investments.
