be cooperating with his former allies again lambasting them by publicly stating that nobody out there in the country will understand how you could block a budget that brings free crashes fiscal progress and stronger public services in any case feuds aside the election got penciled in for sunday NUMBER_TOKENth of january but before the election could take place a problem arose in the rush to dissolve parliament the government had failed to put in place preparations when it came to people in isolation portugal hadn't yet amended its electoral law to include the necessary provisions to allow people isolating due to covid to vote meaning that unless something was done hundreds of thousands of portuguese citizens would effectively be barred from voting raising a huge constitutional question originally it looked like the government were going to change the law by absolute decree which what wouldn't be a very good look changing the electoral law in the immediate run-up to the election even if everyone agrees with it in principle is constitutionally problematic fast forward a few days and after a bit of wrangling with constitutional norms and some legal advice from the attorney general's office a solution was found don't amend the electoral law just amend the health regulations even then it became somewhat of a political football with most opposition parties lambasting the government for taking so long to announce the measure as well as for allowing the increase in infections in the first place for context the interior ministry only formally announced changes on the NUMBER_TOKENth of january just NUMBER_TOKEN days before the election anyway back the election itself opinion polls immediately prior to the election weren't exactly great for anyone no parties seem to have an outright majority and the center-right social democrats seem to be gaining ground on the socialists a return to a hung parliament and the dreaded garingosa coalition looked the most likely outcome fast forward the early hours of monday morning and antonia costa was beaming the socialists were confirmed as winning NUMBER_TOKEN seats in the NUMBER_TOKEN seat parliament up from NUMBER_TOKEN and crucially an absolute majority as i said earlier this is only the second time in the socialist party's history that they'd won an outright majority of the seats and only the sixth time in portuguese democratic history that a single party had held an outright majority in the assembly so apparently the socialists budget gamble of not giving in to increase demands from the left block and communists ended up paying off and things really didn't go as well for the left block or communists having had NUMBER_TOKEN and NUMBER_TOKEN percent of the vote in NUMBER_TOKEN their vote share dropped dramatically to NUMBER_TOKEN and NUMBER_TOKEN percent respectively in seat terms while the left block had NUMBER_TOKEN seats and the communists had NUMBER_TOKEN after the NUMBER_TOKEN election they now have five and six instead more worryingly for some though has been the rise of the far right chaga portuguese for enough having received just NUMBER_TOKEN percent of the vote and one seat in NUMBER_TOKEN cheger is on track for NUMBER_TOKEN percent and NUMBER_TOKEN seats this time round meaning that they'll be the third largest party in the assembly the first time a far-right party is set to be a significant force in the assembly since the revolution in NUMBER_TOKEN that overthrew more than four decades of fascism so what does this all mean for portugal and beyond well much of the same really antonio costa will remain the prime minister and the government will be moving from a minority to a majority position in parliament allowing it to among other things finally
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