It was another week of what passes for normality these days in Portugal—a week of riots, protests, rumors of coups and countercoups, and opaque behind-the-scenes deliberations by the country's confused and divided military rulers. The major problem facing the Armed Forces Movement (M.F.A.) was to set up a new government under leftist Premier General Vasco dos Santos Gonçalves. The previous Cabinet—the fourth since the April 25, 1974 revolution—collapsed this month when Socialists and other moderates resigned. Reason: they were protesting an M.F.A. plan to set up local revolutionary councils that would bypass the authority of the elected Constituent Assembly (TIME, July 28). At week's end, as the once peaceful revolution became increasingly violent, the M.F.A. opted for another new plan of government that not only enables Gonçalves to hold on to his office, but also brings Portugal perilously close to a military dictatorship.
The new plan did not emerge until week's end, after a 14-hour speech-filled meeting of the M.F.A.'s 240-man General Assembly. The scheme: to grant virtually unlimited powers to a triumvirate of generals, made up of President Francisco da Costa Gomes, Premier Gonçalves and Internal Security Forces Chief Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, an ultraradical populist. The 30-man Revolutionary Council, the M.F.A.'s Politburo, presumably will yield almost all of the lawmaking authority it has enjoyed since assuming active rule of the country following the abortive right-wing coup last March. Under the new plan, the Council becomes a consultative body to the triumvirate. To justify the drastic action, Costa Gomes told the Assembly that "the revolution has reached a speed that people do not have the capacity to absorb."
Gonçalves will now try to assemble a new Cabinet. Although it will contain a handful of civilians, its power will be even more negligible than it was before. Moreover, the Cabinet members would have to serve as individuals and not as representatives of the political party to which they belong—thus conforming to the M.F.A.'s arrogant dictum that it and it alone speaks for the people and the revolution.
The new plan is a clear victory for Gonçalves, who earlier this month was fighting for his political life when sentiment mounted in the Revolutionary Council to oust him after the collapse of the Cabinet. They were apparently persuaded by President Costa Gomes, the perennial seeker of compromise within the military movement, that it was not the hour for decision. Gonçalves' survival is also an ominous plus for his ideological mentor, Communist Party Boss Alvaro Cunhal.