Hardline right close to gaining power in Portugal

Hardline conservatives are expected to capture power in Portugal tomorrow in general elections called early because of a crisis among the ruling socialists.

All opinion polls predict victory for the free-market Social Democratic Party (PSD) led by Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, albeit by a narrow margin. Surveys put the proportion of undecided voters as high as one-third of the electorate.

"We're at the end of a political cycle," wrote a respected commentator in yesterday's Expresso magazine, while Diario de Noticias declared: "PSD head for a majority."

The parliamentary elections were called a year early after the shock resignation in December of Antonio Guterres, the socialist Prime Minister, whose party was routed in local elections. He was succeeded as party leader by Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, who has been playing down his six-year record as a loyal member of Mr Guterres' cabinet.

The conservative candidate, the uncharismatic Mr Durao Barroso, entered politics in a far-left Maoist grouping during the heady days that followed the 1974 Carnation Revolution, but turned right in the Eighties.

Mr Durao Barroso wants to slash taxes and social spending to kickstart the flagging economy, privatise what companies remain in state hands and conduct a war against cronyism, tax fiddling and red tape. He admits the measures might be unpopular initially but says: "It's a matter of sink or swim."

The Portuguese have experienced this formula before, under the 10-year premiership of Anibal Cavaco Silva, which produced deep inequalities with no convincing economic pay-off. Voters turned decisively in the mid-Nineties to the socialist alternative, which, after early promise of prosperity and a fairer society, foundered amid allegations of economic mismanagement, chaotic public services and creating "jobs for the boys".