Narrow winner of the legislative elections of March 10 at the head of the moderate right-wing Democratic Alliance (AD), Luis Montenegro has been appointed to the post of Prime Minister of Portugal, announced the Presidency of the Republic in a press release published overnight from Wednesday March 20th to Thursday March 21st.
This 51-year-old trained lawyer and seasoned parliamentarian will succeed the socialist Antonio Costa, in power since the end of 2015. Mr. Montenegro will present the composition of his government next Wednesday, and it should take office on April 2, he said. -he told the press during a brief statement following a meeting with the President of the Republic, the conservative Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
This meeting marked the end of the consultations that the head of state was to hold with the political parties represented in Parliament before inviting the winner of the elections to form the new government.
Eighty deputies out of a total of 230
According to the full results announced at the same time, which made it possible to allocate the four seats in the foreign constituencies, the AD won the elections by a very narrow margin over the Socialist Party (PS). Luis Montenegro's party received 28.8% of the vote and 80 deputies out of a total of 230. It will therefore remain far from the threshold of 116 elected representatives, synonymous with an absolute majority, but its leader had already said he was ready to form a government minority.
“It’s a relative majority. (…) It is on the basis of this majority that, if the President of the Republic hears it, we will present our government,” he underlined on Wednesday at the end of the day, after a first audience with President.
Surprised by the resignation of outgoing Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who did not seek a new term after being cited in an investigation for influence peddling, the PS finished second with 28% of the vote and 78 seats.
The far-right Chega (Enough) party, for its part, clearly strengthened its status as the third political force in the country, going from 12 to 50 deputies, with a score of 18.1%. The president of Chega, André Ventura, reaffirmed Monday his desire to reach an agreement with the moderate right to form a stable majority, without necessarily entering the government, while threatening to oppose it if it refused to open negotiations.
Luis Montenegro, however, repeated after his electoral victory that he would refuse to lead the country with the support of the far right, as he had done throughout the campaign.
“Condemned to negotiation”
The new boss of the Socialist Party, Pedro Nuno Santos, said he was ready on Tuesday to vote for a budget amendment to increase the salaries of teachers, police officers, caregivers and clerks. However, he warned that a favorable vote by the Socialists on the state budget for 2025 was “practically impossible”.
In Portugal, the executive does not need a vote in Parliament to take office. The fall budget deadline therefore appears to be the first test by fire for the next prime minister.
“It will always be a government condemned to negotiation, because such is the fate of minority governments,” political scientist Antonio Costa Pinto commented to Agence France-Presse. But this executive will “not necessarily” be unstable, because “none of the actors have an interest in triggering a crisis” in the short term, specified this analyst from the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS).
In the event of an impasse, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will be called upon to fully play his role as mediator, especially since he cannot dissolve Parliament again before six months.
In Brussels for his last European Council, the outgoing Prime Minister assured that “there will be no change in European policy or in the foreign policy” of Portugal. “Even Chega, unlike far-right parties in other countries in Europe, has never campaigned against the European Union or exploited any Eurosceptic attitude,” argued Antonio Costa.
Luis Montenegro also plans to travel to Brussels, to participate in a meeting of the European People's Party (EPP) on Thursday morning.
