|
LISBON, Oct. 10-- Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa's Socialist Party (PS) won a clear but not overwhelming victory in Sunday's national elections. Academics and political analysts here believe that the main factors behind are the political stability, the budgetary balance achieved throughout the last legislature and outstanding economic growth during the past three years. The high economic growth rates in Portugal, namely 2 percent, 3.5 percent and 2.4 percent in the past three years respectively, are well above the average of the European Union. Moreover, the unemployment rate has decreased from 12 percent in 2017 to the present 6.2 percent, while government budget deficit has also gone down significantly, according to official figures. The economic achievements have undoubtedly encouraged Portuguese people and increased their confidence following the hardship of the debt crisis in 2011. "The economic and financial policy from the government has finished with the advanced payments to the IMF, the reduction of the debt and, mostly, in taking advantage from the economic growth conjuncture," Antonio Costa Pinto, political scientist and coordinating researcher at Political Sciences Institute (ICS) in Lisbon, told Xinhua. "As the Socialist government took power in a moment where the economy was already increasing and, besides that -- and that is a surprise -- the Portuguese economy grew in an unexpected way, unemployment rates dropped significantly and most of the economic indicators were positive," he said. | 
