Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio on Tuesday started talks with parliamentary parties expected to produce an invitation to Socialist leader Jose Socrates to form a government after his landslide victory in Sunday's elections. Sampaio launched the round of talks by receiving representatives of the Green Ecologist Party. He was expected to ask Socrates to form a government by Wednesday. The new prime minister was to be sworn in mid-March. The Socialists won 120 seats in the 230-strong parliament on Sunday, ousting conservative caretaker premier Pedro Santana Lopes. His government was accused of performing so chaotically that Sampaio called an election two years early. The Socialists took their first absolute majority since Portugal returned to democracy in the 1974 Carnation Revolution. Analysts said their number of seats could rise to 121 or 122 when emigrant votes had been counted.
