Minority and condemned to negotiate each law with parties determined to embody the opposition, the next Portuguese government is threatened by instability even before being formed. On Wednesday March 20, around midnight, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, entrusted the leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD, center right), Luis Montenegro, 51, with the task of forming an executive and turn the page on eight years of Antonio Costa’s socialist government.
Coming in first during the early legislative elections of March 10 with 29% of the votes, the conservative coalition Democratic Alliance (AD) which he led, bringing together around the PSD, the right-wing Democratic and Social Center party (CDS) and a small monarchist party, however, only has 80 seats out of 230 in the Assembly of the Republic.
“Change Portugal”
“There is a relative majority, not absolute, made up of deputies from the PSD and CDS, and it is on this basis that we will present our government and begin the task of changing Portugal,” Mr. Montenegro declared earlier in the day, after a first visit to the presidential palace in Belem. Determined to govern in a minority, at most he plans to include representatives of the young Liberal Initiative (IL) party, in order to secure eight additional seats in the government. He should unveil the composition of his team on March 28, to take office on April 2.
Ten days after the vote, the Portuguese president waited for the publication of the final results of the early legislative elections – which were only known on the night of Wednesday March 20 to Thursday March 21 – once the emigrants’ votes had been counted, to appoint the new prime minister. The Portuguese far-right party Chega (“enough”) finally won two of the four seats contested in the two constituencies abroad (Europe and the rest of the world), where some 330,000 Portuguese – a record – went to the polls.
Founded in 2019 by former sports commentator and doctor of law André Ventura, Chega thus confirms its dazzling electoral breakthrough, going from 12 to 50 deputies (18% of the vote). Coming in third place, he has continued to put pressure on the PSD in recent days to include him in a coalition government, in exchange for four years of stability. Despite pressure from representatives of the right wing of his own party, Mr. Montenegro nevertheless confirmed his campaign promise not to integrate the extreme right into his executive.
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