Eventually Portugal will have a socialist government. The decision was made by the President of the Republic Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who he gave the job to PS leader Antonio Costa, despite the fact that Passos Coelho's conservatives had won the last elections, without however finding a majority in Parliament.
The new government will be, so to speak, "Greek-style", given that it will be made up only of socialist members and supported by the Communist Party and the Bloco, formation similar to Syriza. A historical fact: for the first time in Portuguese democratic history, in fact, the Portuguese communists, of orthodox observance, will not sit in the opposition (the only exception were the provisional governments after the Carnation revolution of 1974).
Before assigning the assignment, the president of the republic (centre-right) had Costa sign one letter in which he declares that he must respect the international commitments with Europe and with NATO. A move to reassure the European partners, Portugal, in fact, is the first country where the Troika has intervened with very drastic measures which, during the electoral campaign, had been harshly criticized, albeit with different accents, by the left. Furthermore, the communists are against the presence in the Atlantic Alliance, so much so that they did not sign the president's letter.
In short, Costa's room for maneuver will be very narrow, moreover in a very tried country: on the one hand the commitments with Europe, on the other the battles against the austerity of a left with a strong component that some have even defined as old Marxist.
