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Portugal no-confidence vote fails, govt seen stable

LISBON, May 21 (Reuters) - Portugal’s parliament rejected a no-confidence motion against the minority Socialist government on Friday, confirming the main opposition party’s backing for the cabinet’s austerity plan and defusing the risk of snap elections until 2011, analysts said. “This vote shows that political stability should prevail at least until March 2011, or through all of 2011,” said political scientist Antonio Costa Pinto.

Parliament cannot be dissolved in the final six months of President Anibal Cavaco Silva’s mandate, which ends next March. A general election would in theory be possible until September this year and then only after March.

The motion, proposed by the Communist Party in protest at the government’s austerity drive to cut a ballooning budget deficit, needed more than half of the votes in the 230-seat house to succeed. But only 31 left-wing lawmakers backed it.

The largest opposition party, the centre-right Social Democrats (PSD), abstained, as expected, after having pledged earlier to support the austerity strategy and avoid political instability as investors fret over Portugal’s creditworthiness amid Greece’s debt crisis.

It was the first no-confidence motion faced by the centre-left government since Prime Minister Jose Socrates’ re-election in September.

“Unless something unforeseeable happens, neither the PSD nor any social protests will provoke the government’s demise until March,” Costa Pinto said. He did not expect massive strikes or violent protests over the austerity as seen in Greece.

The government’s pact with the PSD on austerity, which includes tax hikes, spending and some salary cuts in the public sector, is valid for this year and next. With PSD abstention, the Socialists have enough parliament seats to pass any bill.

The plan, presented last week in response to a $1 trillion euro zone safety net agreement, aims to slash the budget gap to 7.3 percent of gross domestic this year and to 4.6 percent in 2011 from last year’s highs of 9.4 percent.

“After today’s vote the PSD and even the CDS-PP assumed the responsibility for the government’s remaining in power,” said political analyst Andre Freire. “It’s not in anyone’s interests to change the government before the presidential election.”

The right-wing CDS-PP party also abstained.

PSD bench leader Miguel Macedo said Portugal “cannot afford the luxury of adding a political crisis to a very serious financial and economic crisis”, even though the government did deserve to be censured on various accounts.

“The government is guilty of the serious financial and economic situation we’re in ... But ousting the government on this occasion would have disastrous consequences,” he said.

Costa Pinto said that despite PSD’s growing ratings in opinion polls [ID:nLDE64K0IN], it still faces the challenge of reconciling its stance as the main opposition party with the commitment it made to the government’s plan, which could cost it votes in the future.

(Reporting by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Jason Webb)

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