http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/World/Social_Democrats_Win_Election_In_Portgual-4024.html

Portugal's Social Democrats unseated the Socialist government in an emphatic election victory on Sunday, giving the centre-right party a strong mandate to enact a grinding austerity program demanded in return for a 78 billion euro (114 billion US dollar) international bailout.

Party leader Pedro Passos Coelho told supporters that Portugal had a difficult road ahead but he was confident that the country could get back on its feet.

"Portugal is living an extraordinary circumstance, we all know that the great need for change that the country demonstrated today is not a need to look back and set the score with the past, it is an unmistakable will to open a window of hope towards the future," he said at a news conference shortly after early results were returned.

Though the severe debt-reduction measures are expected to pitch the country into deep recession and bring sharply lower living standards in what already is one of western Europe's poorest countries, parties that support the effort to restore fiscal health collected around 80 percent of the vote.