Facebook post by Portugal’s PM receives angry back-lash

The Portuguese Prime Minister has used Facebook to express his discomfort over economic events...

16:10 11 September 2012

Pedro Passos Coelho as PM of Portugal has received abuse over his post on social network site ‘Facebook’, as he expressed his concerns regarding more austerity measures. People have hit back, as the country continues to face up to its recession.

 

Some 47,000 comments were directed at the PM’s post which he wrote on Saturday, where Mr. Passos Coelho touched on the struggle of having to announce more measures to tackle the deficit problem.

 

The page activity came about following Friday’s announcement, where reportedly Mr. Passos Coelho explained the new approach to combat the countries problems with international creditors.

 

On his ‘Facebook’ page Mr. Passos Coelho wrote the announcement had been 'one of the most thankless speeches a prime minister can make,' and he referred to his voters as ‘friends’ who he wanted to ‘spare’ from the news.

 

While the government work with a €78billion bailout programme, some criticisms were directed at the unfairness posed on Portuguese citizens.

 

It is understood spending cuts are expected to affect the country’s workers, in an attempt to support the plan for restructuring the economy, and the PM addressed unemployment as a 'personal and family drama' in his post, as quoted by the Mail Online.

 

One response read: “Mr Prime Minister, your term in office only recently began, but it is already proving a disaster, unemployment has become a permanent fact of life.” 

 

Some reports say that many responses from voters even called for the PM’s resignation, however, it is understood that there was support shown for his message, as reported by the Financial Times, with it having more than 7,000 ‘likes’.