A Goan 'Babush' set to topple Govt, becoming PM of Portugal
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 10 November 2015 14:38 IST
A Goan ‘Babush’, Antonio Costa, does it in Portugal. Toppling the government within 10 days, he is all set to become the Prime Minister of Portugal.
The son of Goan poet Orlando Costa from Margao, 54-year old Antonio Costa has aligned with left and green parties, to form an alliance government.
The picture will be clear tonight.
Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho was reinstated again as the PM on 30 October, as a single largest party, though he could not garner majority in the 230-member Portuguese Parliament.
Winning only 107 seats in the election held in the first week of October, Coelho’s Forward Portugal could not manage to win over nine members on his side to retain his government.
Taking advantage of a hung Parliament, Costa’s Socialist Party (PS) struck a deal with its arch rivals – the radical Left Block, Communist Party and the Greens to establish a majority of 122.
Coelho’s Forward Portugal had come to power in 2011 as the Socialist party (PS) had lost vote when the Parliament rejected former PM Jose Socrates’ austerity budget, drafted during economic crisis under the pressure of International Monetary Fund.
The PS will come back to power once again, presuming that Coelho’s Forward Portugal will fail to establish majority vote tonight.
While the PS led by Costa wants to keep Portugal within single-currency, the Communist Party wants Portugal to quit the Eurozone.
The real challenge before ‘Goenkar’ Costa is to pull out Portugal, his former colonial master, from the economic crisis.
Babush, as he was known in Margao, has a 150-year old ancestral house on Abe de Faria Road in Margao.
His paternal aunty and first cousins live in Goa.
Portugal earlier had Panaji-based Naraina Coissoro as the leader of the opposition in Portuguese Parliament.
Costa, also former mayor of Lisbon, however is the first Goan-origin politician to become the Prime Minister of Portugal.
Viva Goa, Viva Portugal.