“I have given everything I could to offer the Portuguese a political solution for stability,” Passos Coelho said in an interview with television broadcaster SIC on Tuesday evening. “I think that whoever wins the elections must try to win them with an absolute majority, whether the coalition that I lead or the [Socialist Party].


“It’s preferable for there to be an unequivocal winner in the elections, so that the country can have a stable government to govern.”
He would not, he said, “lose a second” talking about the presidential elections until the dust settles from the legislative vote.


On the latest euro-zone agreement on Greece, the prime minister said that if a deal had not been reached then a temporary exit from the euro zone would have been inevitable. This might even have been in the interest of the Greek government, he added, arguing that it could then implement “a different economic policy that the rules of the euros do not allow”.


Asked whether such a ‘Grexit’ is now ruled out, Passos Coelho said “I sincerely hope so.”


He dismissed the idea that there were euro-zone members who refused to contemplate a Grexit, alleging that “there was always unanimity within the Eurogroup” and citing the final agreement as proof of this.