Shaping a Dynamic Future

The young officers of the Armed Forces Movement who engineered last April's revolution promised elections within a year--and last week they made good on that promise. From his desk in Lisbon's pink stucco Belem Palace, President Francisco da Costa Gomes announced that the government had set April 12 as the date for Portugal's first free elections in 49 years. The balloting for a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution, Costa Gomes said on TV, marked "a fundamental milestone" on the path to democracy. Cautioning voters against extremists of both the left and right, he added that "not to vote is to betray the people. Don't be ashamed of your lack of political culture, which has always been denied you. Now you must discuss, listen, read, talk and study the party programs."

In some ways, the presidential injunction seemed superfluous: Portugal has been bristling with political activity since the overthrow of the Caetano dictatorship, as if the people were making up for the decades when any kind of political activity was banned. The once sparkling white walls of Lisbon are disfigured by thousands of peeling political posters; radio and television devote seemingly endless hours to political debates, and most newspapers are little more than partisan broadsheets. There is a rally almost every day by at least one of the country's more than 50 parties.

New Freedoms. In some rural areas, where illiteracy is high, people are still not confident about their new freedoms. In an attempt to explain what the election means, the Armed Forces Movement launched a program last month called dinamizac,a (dynamiza-tion). Army commandos with tanks, planes, trucks and landing barges went into remote regions, putting on exhibition maneuvers to get people together. Explains Captain Joao Carlos Albuquerque Pinto: "Our teams are apolitical. We only explain democracy. Later the political parties can reach the population themselves. We just tell the people that they can now speak freely because there are no secret police."

The big problem in the weeks ahead will be to keep partisanship from getting out of hand. So far, there has been only one major clash. That occurred last month in the northwestern city of Oporto when thousands of leftists besieged a congress of the conservative Center Social Democratic Party and paratroopers had to be called in. The Communists are the party most likely to run into campaigning difficulties. They have no problems in areas south of the Tagus River, where the people are generally anticlerical. Things are different in northern Portugal, a closed, quasi-medieval society, where the Roman Catholic Church is strong, priests tend to be reactionary, and typical graffiti are likely to be something along the order of Queremos a Deus (We love God). Priests have been threatening excommunication of anyone who plans to vote Communist.

The Armed Forces Movement has vowed to guarantee that each political group will enjoy the right to freedom of assembly, a move that is generally approved by all factions. Said Foreign Minister (and head of the Socialist Party) Mario Scares last week: "We need the force of the M.F.A. to impose direction on the democratization of the country. There is great instability in Portugal, and it is necessary that we avoid it through the constitution." The constituent assembly's deliberations on the constitution are expected to last three months. Then a second election, either for a Parliament or for a President--depending on which form of government the assembly chooses--will be held, probably in the fall.

Most of the parties that were formed in the wake of the April revolution are still in the process of organization. Radical fringe groups, notably the Maoist Movement for the Reorganization of the Proletariat Party (M.R.P.P.), have been in the forefront of Lisbon street demonstrations, but they have not necessarily made the most impact. Sample polls last month showed the middle-of-the-road Popular Democratic Party and the conservative Center Social Democratic Party leading with 30% of the vote each; the Socialists were close behind with 25%. The leading political groups:

> The Popular Democratic Party (P.D.P.), which is a member of the provisional coalition government along with the Socialists and the Communists, represented the "liberal" wing of the subservient National Assembly during the Caetano regime. Party Leader Francisco Sa Carneiro, 40, defends its participation in politics under the dictatorship as "a struggle from within." The P.D.P. espouses a Swedish-style "social democracy" and membership in the European Common Market.

> The Portuguese Socialist Party (P.S.P.) draws its support from the upper and middle classes, civil servants and students. It favors limited nationalization of basic industries, agrarian reform, and keeping Portugal in NATO. Party Leader Soares, 50, who spent six years in exile in Paris before the revolution, has emerged as one of the country's most respected politicians for his role in negotiating the decolonization of Portugal's African territories.

> The Center Social Democratic Party (C.D.S.) is the largest conservative group, with strong links to Portugal's old mercantile class, and a prime target of the radical left, which sees it as a front for "fascist reactionaries." The party derives its support largely from Lisbon businessmen and small farmers in the conservative north; it advocates free enterprise, backs NATO and closer ties with the Common Market.

> The Portuguese Communist Party (P.C.P.), whose 36-man Central Committee collectively racked up more than 300 years in jail under the old regime, has benefited from the tight organization established when the party worked underground. Despite years in prison and exile, Party Chief Alvaro Cunhal, 60, Minister Without Portfolio in the provisional government, has become the best-known politician in the country. The Communist program is relatively moderate, calling for agrarian reform and nationalization of banks and insurance companies. Its heaviest support comes from workers and tenant farmers in the impoverished Alentejo region in the south.

The political uncertainties that lie ahead seem to bother Portugal's allies abroad more than they bother the Portuguese themselves. Most people are confident that the elections will come off as planned and that foreign fears about the country's going far leftist or Communist are vastly exaggerated. General Carlos Galvao de Melo, a conservative supporter of the junta's first president, General Antonio de Spinola, states flatly that "there will be no leftist takeover." Recent polls in fact show the Communists and their affiliates getting no more than 12% of the vote.

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