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A parliamentary vote on Tuesday, 10 November ousted Portugal’s recently sworn in center-right minority government.

The Socialist Party, the Left Bloc and the Portuguese Communist Party rejected the newly sworn in government’s austerity proposals, effectively forcing prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho and his center-right government to resign just 11 days after coming into power. Coelho’s rule will be the shortest since Portugal transitioned to democracy after a coup and elections in 1975.

The alliance between the Socialist Party and the smaller Left Bloc and Portuguese Communist Party was somewhat unprecedented, and the parties formed an alternative government just days before today’s vote.

Portugal’s harsh austerity measures, initiated by a 78 billion-euro bailout from international lenders, have been mobilizing citizens since the agreement was signed in May 2011. Large scale protests and strikes have been a constant in Portugal since it became the third Eurozone country to receive a bailout, after Ireland and Greece.

The country has four years later progressed out of the bailout measures, but not before Coelho in his first term imposed the largest tax increase in recent Portuguese history, welfare cuts, pension slashing and changes to labor entitlements. Portuguese voters saw Coelho as ruthless, but also believed him to be the best choice for an austerity-minded leader.

But a continuing recession and minute gains in the job market has left the Portuguese electorate not much better off than three years ago, plus an added burden of harsh austerity.

Leader of the Socialist Party, António Costa, and his broad, leftwing coalition that includes the hardline left parties like the Communist Party and Left Bloc. Costa will likely become prime minister in the coming weeks. The major distinction between the Socialist Party and its other coalition members is its stance on the bailout measures--the Socialist Party maintains that it will follow the European Union’s rules but still loosen austerity. The Communist Party and Left Bloc are notably anti-austerity, with links to Greece’s Syriza Party.

Speaking about the historic vote, Costa cheered the victory noting “The taboo has ended; the wall has been broken...This is a new political framework; the old majority cannot pretend to be what it stopped being.”

After winning in Portugal’s October election, ousted prime minister Coelho planned to continue ruling with a minority government, as he lost his party’s absolute majority in Parliament.

The alliance is historic, because austerity has been a highly divisive and polarizing issue in the European Union over the past decade. With unemployment as high as 12% and a severely decreasing standard of living, the ability of the center-left and left to form a coalition brings the message that austerity is not the answer.

Costa presented his pragmatism again after the vote, saying “We’re in a position to assure the scrupulous fulfillment of our international obligations, but while allowing family income to recover, and the economy and employment to grow.”

The Socialist Party coalition will likely be sworn in next month.