72June 2015
Q. First, can you tell me how Bloco de
Esquerda [the Left Bloc] came about?
Several events happened at the end of the
s that played into our foundation. The
anti-globalisation movement, centred
around Seattle in , was important.
There was a growing conclusion that we
need to find new ways to work together and
build projects. Some of these were forums,
others were political parties. That was the
international moment we were in.
Then there was the Indonesia-East-Timor
war and occupation. The Portuguese popu-
lation had its own anti-war movement and
sided with Timor against Indonesia. This
managed to bring different sections of the
Left together to discuss war and
campaigning.
Finally the failure of the abortion refer-
endum in  was also an influence.
There was a referendum to overturn laws
banning abortion in Portugal but no broad
campaign by progressive or left-wing
forces; instead every little group ran their
own one. Some of these ran against each
other or had clashing strategies. The Yes
vote lost, so abortion was illegal in Portu-
gal until . This was the last straw for
many on the Left.
Q. So how did Bloco form out of these
conditions?
The definition of Bloco, in its first statute, is
a party-movement. It is a broad party that
engages with other movements without
substituting for or controlling them. It is
built up by this grass-roots strength and
given a voice in institutions, with a political
programme that unites those two domains.
Therefore it manages to build strategy
together with people who come from very
different perspectives, activist histories
and traditions.
We grew steadily from , when the
party formed, until . From  Por-
tugal had a liberal government under the
Socialist Party [Portugal’s Labour Party]
which had been applying austerity meas-
ures for some time before the crisis hit.
They used the crisis as an excuse to escalate
this. In  we had elections and a broad
social mobilisation against austerity. The
Socialist Party still won these elections but
they didn’t achieve a majority and formed a
minority government. Bloco de Esquerda
had %, the Portuguese Communist
Party had %, so the radical Left was on
almost %.
Q. What was the result of this growth in
support for anti-austerity alternatives?
It didn’t mean anything in terms of the pro-
gramme of the Socialist Party government.
In fact, from  onwards they began to
impose what they called the “four pacts”,
which were packages of austerity measures.
The first one cut public spending, the
second cut social security, and so on. In
parallel they introduced continual meas-
ures liberalising the labour market.
This produced social mobilisations. We
had important Euro May Day demonstra-
tions in . Euro May Day parades are
structures we inherited from Milan – col-
ourful, anti-union, involving precarious/
zero-hours workers, quite creative and
young, talking differently about labour.
Some parts have very Negrian theories,
others go with Guy Standing’s idea of the
precariat.
Our version of this, in contrast to those
in Italy, didn’t adopt an anti-union dis-
course about precarious work but rather
tried to ‘add struggles to the struggle’ and
forge links with the unions, joining them
on the May Day march.
We developed a theoretical framework
called “precarity in life”, which was a new
form of labour discourse. We weren’t just
talking about conditions at the point of
production – contracts, wages and so on.
We talked about the way labour instability
affects different spheres of life, and affects
you differently if you are a woman, a
Village’s
Ronan
Burtenshaw
interviews Bloco de
Esquerda’s
Catarina Príncipe
In 2011 Portugal
was at the forefront
of Europe’s anti-
austerity movement.
Yet, four years
later, as elections
approach in the
Autumn, there is
no chance of a Left
government to
ally with Greece’s
Syriza or the recent
municipal victories
in Spain. What went
wrong? And can
Portugal return to
the frontlines?
Syriza, Podemos, Right2Water…
But Portugal’s radical Left is in trouble
INTERNATIONAL Portugal
Portuguese
The rise of the
Radical Left
didn’t mean
anything in
terms of the
programme
of the
Socialist Party
government. In
fact, from 2009
onwards they
began to impose
what they
called the “four
pacts”, which
were packages
of austerity
measures
“
parallels