Quick Facts: Portuguese GDP evolution across PS and PSD lead Governments

In the last 30 years, Portugal's political spectrum has been pretty much split between governments lead by the centre-right PSD and the centre-left PS.

It is interesting and entertaining to try to establish connections between left/right-oriented policies and economical output.

The data shows, however, that despite the fact that both PS and PSD (and others) tend to try to associate economic performance with governmental policies, it seems that similar sized economies have been having a tendency to have similiar performances, irrespective of their governances.

Does this mean that the political claims and accusations are mere populist statements? Or does it mean that the international markets are more determinant to economic performance than governance? I say the latter is definitely a more scary and interesting thought than the former.