Who´s a team player?

Recently, the portuguese government has been challenged by the utmost pressure to re invent itself. The coalition party of the current government - CDS-PP - has announced that it will not tolerate the thriven political ambition nor support the PM’s choice of a new finance minister since Mr. Vitor Gaspar resigned. If this will happen; the portuguese government will be consisted of a one party entirely.

Understandably, the power party PSD (social democrats) has tried to save the country with it’s strict and firm loan and tax policy; which of course the socialist parties in the opposition has ironically criticized. The Socialist party itself could be another story in this entirely, because they were the ones in power previous to PSD and got the the country to the mess its in in the first place.

However, coming back to the topic. What I’d like to question is why don’t the portuguese winning parties aim towards a ‘team played’ government which would include several parties?

As it happens, the portuguese government, if its lucky, will be founded by 2 parties (in this case CDS and PSD). Very american I must say.

So I ask my friends, where is the democracy in this? It stuns me that no party is willing to negotiate a government that would include all parties - because most likely it would favor the legitimacy of the winning party and let the ones who lost still have a voice. 

In Northern Europe this is standard procedure. Maybe this has also been the downfall of Passos Coelho’s government as getting the country back on its feet including all parties would have favorable to him. Now, people are anticipating new elections to in the near future, one can only hope that the upcoming winning party would take a new toll on manner to run the country, otherwise their time in power will be limited as well.

P.s ... By no means am I a fan of any particular portuguese party but one might wonder whether Passos Coelho should replace Gaspar with Antonio Jose Seguro? Think about it;  the PS would have a shot to show exactly what do they mean to do better and Passos Coelho would enjoy legitimacy equally fathered government... and perhaps in the end would get to say...”i told you so!”.. 

As a foreigner it’s a shame to see that this sense of togetherness “we can get through this” is not being forced by any political leader, therefore no hope is given to people who so desperately need it. One could compare FDR from the US and his politics to save America from the great depression and managing to get re-elected. Could this happen to Mr. Coelho? Time will tell.