Portugal's six-year-old Socialist Party lost to the center-right Social Democratic Party in snap parliamentary elections on Sunday. According to preliminary results, the Social Democrats won 38% of voters, while the Socialists got 28%.

However, to form a government, the Social Democrats need to form a coalition: they will only take 105 of the 230 seats in parliament. Pedro Passos Coelho, the leader of the Social Democrats and future prime minister, said he was ready to unite with the People's Party, which received 24 seats (the third result). The Communist-Green bloc also entered parliament - 16 seats and the Left Bloc (8 seats).

José Socrates, the Socialist leader and former prime minister whose resignation as head of government after the failure of a vote on an anti-crisis package triggered the elections, has announced his resignation as party leader.

Coelho said on Monday that all commitments to the EU would be honoured. He promised to form a government as soon as possible. The future prime minister, an economist by profession, advocates large-scale privatisation, the implementation of large infrastructure projects such as the construction of a high-speed railway, and additional budget cuts beyond those prescribed by Portugal's commitments to the EU and the IMF.

The EU and the IMF have agreed to allocate 78 billion euros to save Portugal. In response, the country must reduce its budget deficit from 9% in 2010 to 5.9% this year and to 3% by 2013, freeze public sector wages and pensions, and reduce social benefits.

Of the 27 EU countries, the Socialists retain power in Spain, Greece, Slovenia, Austria and Cyprus. The Spanish Socialists suffered defeat in the regional parliamentary elections in May, which complicates their task of retaining power in the general elections next March. Local elections in France, Germany and Italy in the last two years have confirmed the trend of ruling parties losing to the opposition. This is the result of the economic crisis: naturally, parties that have failed the economic situation, regardless of whether they are to blame for this or not, must answer, but new parties are unlikely to be able to offer new approaches, says Pavel Kandel, a leading researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Crisis of the Socialists