Antonio Costa, a mirror to look at

February 1 2022 (12:45 WET)

A few months ago, the Portuguese Parliament tried, unsuccessfully, to approve its budgets to continue working with the determination it had been doing for some years, since the socialist Antonio Costa took over the presidency of the country. Coincidentally, those who shot them down with their vote against were their own traveling companions who, until that moment, had postured as promoters of change. They found a country in tatters after the years of government of the ostentatious right of Passos Coelho, who boasted of management when reality, stubborn, showed a country immersed in an economic rescue, practically bankrupt and indebted to the eyebrows.

Costa has done such a serious and rigorous management that he has become a benchmark for the economy of his country. Portugal has practically eliminated the deficit; has begun to reduce its public debt; economic inequality is at a minimum in recent years and the unemployment rate has fallen from 16% in 2013 to 6.7% today, the lowest level since 2004, with a more than notable reduction in youth unemployment that is already in figures similar to those of the rest of the European Union, according to recent data from the International Monetary Fund. Costa's management has allowed the economy of that country to grow at a solid pace after being rescued with almost 100,000 million dollars in 2011, and becoming impoverished after suffering a severe crisis in 2012 and 2013. In addition, Portugal has obtained recognition from the International Monetary Fund after repaying the rescue "generated by the managing right" in advance. Thus, David Lipton, number two of this organization, said that Portugal's economic recovery "is a lesson for the rest of Europe, even for the world."

After the electoral results registered this past weekend in Portugal we can draw several conclusions. On the one hand, that politicians must govern with honesty towards our voters. We are at the service of the country, the institution and the citizens, and not to try to win a handful of votes. Those who maneuvered against the government of Antonio Costa from within the government are today irrelevant and residual after the punishment of the left-wing voter himself. And, on the other hand and more alarming, that the populist, recalcitrant and retrograde right continues to advance throughout Europe. Now, after the elections held this past weekend, it has become the third political force in Portugal. Thus, we can transfer that in our country it will also continue to grow as long as the parties to the left of the PSOE do not understand that the population wants stability and that we provide them with a simpler and more friendly day-to-day life.

Meanwhile, a tireless and educated negotiator like Costa will continue for four more years at the head of the Portuguese government trying to add efforts, to create consensus, to occupy a wider and more transversal space, and convincing more and more people every day with his gestures, and not with outbursts and devious ways of doing politics.

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