Portugal's austerity program, originally introduced by the Socialist Party, has impoverished the country and driven half a million young people emigrate. Unemployment, while down from its height of 17 percent, is still at 12 percent, and over 31 percent for youth. One out of five in the population is below the poverty line of $5,589 a year, and Portugal has one of the highest in income inequality in the EU. The average household income has fallen 8.9 percent since 2009. Exhausted by austerity, Portugal's voters turned against the rightwing government and turned it into a minority.
In what is an historic development -- one commentator called it a "Berlin Wall moment" -- the three left parties put aside their differences and agreed to form a united front government.
While all the left parties opposed austerity -- the Socialist Party having finally seen the light -- they differed on many other issues. The Left Bloc and the Communist Green alliance opposes Portugal's membership in NATO and wanted the country to get out of the Eurozone, the group of 19 countries in the 28-member EU that use the euro.
The euro is a controversial issue. It has been a boon for Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, and to the large banks that dominate European finance. But it has had a generally negative impact on many other countries, particularly those in the distressed south -- Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal. Since Ireland is also in this same the problems are economic, not geographical.
As far as NATO goes, there are a number of political organizations that argue the old Cold War alliance should be retired and that NATO does more to raise tensions on the continent that it does protect its members.
In any case, opposition to NATO and the euro are hardly opinions that should bar one from government, but that is exactly what the Portuguese president has done.
He has received support for his position as well. Joseph Daul, president of the center-right grouping in the European Parliament, said, "The sacrifices made by the people of Portugal must not be jeopardized by a government composed of anti-EU and anti-NATO parties." German Chancellor Angela Merkel said an anti-austerity government in Portugal would be a "very negative" development.
Some of the comments have an Alice in Wonderland quality to them. Coelho said, "It's time to say loud and clear that the Socialist Party lost the elections...we're not going to stand the elections results on their head." He was joined by the rightwing Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, who warned, "coalitions of losers want to join forces to do away with moderate majorities in our societies, to attain through deals what they didn't achieve at the ballot box."
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