An unwary reading of some headlines on Monday might have suggested that Portugal’s centre-right coalition government won the backing of the nation’s voters for its austerity economic policies in Sunday’s general election. Pedro Passos Coelho’s Portugal Ahead coalition had indeed campaigned on the slogan “Austerity Works”, a boast that was bolstered by the country’s rising rate of growth and falling unemployment in the wake of the €78bn bailout agreed in 2011. And Mr Coelho now looks set for another period in power after the coalition scooped substantially more votes than any of its rivals. If nothing else, that outcome will be a piece of good news for David Cameron in his EU negotiations, since along with Angela Merkel in Germany and Mariano Rajoy in Spain, Mr Coelho has been one of the UK government’s political allies.

Yet any objective reading of Portugal’s election would soon conclude that the coalition government was not just a winner but also a big loser on Sunday. Portugal Ahead’s 38% share of the vote is hardly a ringing endorsement when it is recalled that the same parties captured 51% in the last elections in 2011. Its projected total of 100 seats in the new parliament compares badly with the 132 seats it commanded before the election. From being able to govern as a majority, Portugal Ahead now faces minority status, dependent in large part on an agreement with the Socialist party to get its programme, or a moderate version of its programme, through parliament. As victories go, it is a very fragile one.

The corollary of the centre-right’s weak performance was a strong set of performances on the left. The Socialists, who presided over Portugal’s economic crisis in 2011 and whose then leader José Sócrates remains under house arrest amid allegations of corruption, have recovered from 28% four years ago to 32% this week. Other parties of the left, including the Left Bloc, a Syriza-style anti-austerity alliance, and the Communists, also did better, taking 10% and 8% of the vote respectively. Though the parties of the left cannot agree among themselves on a programme, and the Socialists have said they will not participate in a “negative majority”, the fact remains that more Portuguese voters opted for parties of the left than the right. The upbeat spin on this outcome is that it puts the Socialists in a kingmaking position. The reality is that the party has done worse than the polls were suggesting last year and is divided about how best to proceed.

Like voters in many European countries after the financial crash, Portugal’s have shown that they are disenchanted – turnout was projected to be 57% – and conflicted. Although the result conforms to the stereotype that says post-austerity voters turn to the left in southern Europe but to the right in the northern countries, the result shows that Portugal is not Greece. Having gone through the economic pain of austerity, Portugal’s voters neither want to throw the gains away nor to suffer more than seems strictly necessary amid cautiously brightening economic indicators. The general election has produced a precarious result, which may bring instability and an early return to the polls. But it is also an opportunity for the two main parties to cooperate to provide what Portuguese voters clearly want: a significant easing of austerity, now that the worst seems to be over.