Portugal's Coelho Challenges Socialists to Allow Early Vote
- New elections would require a change to the constitution
- President to decide who will govern after Premier Coelho fell
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Portugal’s caretaker Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho called on his Socialist opponent, Antonio Costa, to back a review of the constitution and allow early elections to take place in a gambit aimed at staving off Costa’s attempt to seize power.
Coelho’s challenge marks a different tack to stop Costa from forming a minority Socialist government propped up by three other left-wing parties. Finance Minister Maria Luis Albuquerque warned this week that any attempt to abandon the path of reform and budget constraint could drive Portugal down the same path of economic misery as Greece.