Registered with the Post Office as a newspaper. Published by Relgocrest Ltd for Red Weekly, 97 Caledonian Road, London N.I. (01-837 6954) General Eanes, army chief-of-staff, has Nobody ever doubted that he would-it taken 61 per cent of the vote.
tions in April, it was vital for the ruling class to group the broadest possible for ces behind a strong military figure. In that they have been successful. Eanes, who has already streamlined the army, tore law and order throughout society.
movement-Major Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, and Octavio Pato of the CPimportant success, because it has been want a coalition between te socialist or at least a minority SP government which relies for support on the PPD. won the presidential elections in Portugal.
was just a question of how big his margin would be over the other candidates. With only a few results to come in, Eanes had After the workers parties (Communist Party, Socialist Party and the far left) had won a majority in the legislative elec centred his campaign on the need to resThe two candidates from the workers scored a combined figure of 25 per cent. Nevertheless. the result was a disaster for the CP. In April they won nearly 15 per cent. On Sunday that figure was cut by half as the vote for Pato fell to 8 per cent The ruling class has thus scored an trying to marginalise the CP in order to avoid having the party of Cunhal in government. Its dismal showing on Sunday will strengthen the position or tose wile Party and the Popular Democrats (PPD), PRP and UDP.
The poor vote for the Stalinists comes as no surprise. They would have preferred not to run in the first place, and their campaign throughout was one of exerting pressure on Eanes and the SP to keep the CP in government. And because their campaign ignored the key issues facing the working class, they lost out heavily to Otelo, who was supported by the centrist groups such as the MES, This was overwhelming v clear in the industrial regions and the South. In April the coutner towns oesea and vort proved to be bastions of the CP, with the party polling 44 and 43 per cent respectively. On Sunday Otelo won 39 per cent in Beja to Pato's 25.5 per cent; while in Evora the margin was even wider-35 and 19 per cent respectively.
However the most significant defeat for the CP came in Setubal, the third largest industrial city. This was where the CP scored its highest vote, 44.3 per cent, in April. Yet in the presidential elections Pato's score plummeted to 18.5 per cent, whereas Otelo totalled 42 per cent. The fact that amongst the most class-conscious section of workers in Portugalperhaps in Europe-Otelo polled over 40 per cent shows the dynamic his campaign picked up.
Despite the victory of Eanes, therefore, the working class has shown in its vote for Otelo and Pato that it will not easily bow before the threatened ruling class offensive. Already Otelo has called for a national conference of all the local commit tees set up to support his campaign, which could play a useful role in develop ing the coordination of working class resistance. Major class confrontations remain ahead, and it is these that will decite me we or Portuga Steve Webster