Luís Montenegro’s Democratic Alliance (AD) has won the legislative elections in Portugal, which will allow the current prime minister to continue in office. With more than 99% scrutinized – the four deputies that are settled in the vote of the expatriates will not be known immediately – the conservatives win with more than 32% of the votes and obtain 89 deputies, while the Socialist Party (PS) retains second place with 23.4% and 58 seats. Chega’s extreme right steps on his heels, with 22.6%, only 49,000 votes below, and the same number of parliamentarians.
This is an important right -wing victory in a elections where participation has been 64%, four more points than a year ago. If their votes are added, the rights of AD – Coalition composed of the formation of Montenegro, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the minority Democratic and Social Center (CDS) -, Chega and Liberal Initiative, which rises from eight to nine deputies, achieve 60% of the total suffrages.
Its main rival, the Socialist Party (PS) of Pedro Nuno Santos, loses 400,000 votes and 20 seats in the Assembly of the Republic. The PS has managed to retain the second position despite the fact that during a good part of the scrutiny it was behind Chega. The vote of the Lisbon district, the most populated, has been fundamental for a comeback that is little comfort. After midnight Santos has appeared to announce that he will ask for internal elections in the party and will not apply to continue leading him. At the same time, he has insisted that the PS should not support Montenegro’s investiture, since its program “goes against the principles and values” of the formation.
The defeat is more painful if one takes into account that in the 2022 elections they had achieved the absolute majority with António Coast of candidate. The president resigned a year later after an investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office that included the registration of his home, but that to date has not resulted in indications of corruption. Costa presides today the European Council.
The ultra -rightist Chega party, embodied in the figure of the controversial André Ventura, goes from 18% to 22% of the vote in a year. “Today, bipartisanship is broken in Portugal,” said Ventura when the electoral projections were known, which placed them ahead of the Socialists. “Today Chega is the government alternative,” he added. In his tight struggle with the socialists, the vote abroad is anticipated relevant; In 2024 Chega was the winning party among the Portuguese residents outside the country. The almost 50,000 votes that the PS obtained in the interior makes a turnover in number of supports difficult, but it is possible that the ultra -rightists can go ahead in seats.
AD wins with great force in the north of the country, where it usually obtains good results. Chega, meanwhile, improves in his fiefs. In the Algarve it is first force again, but in 2024 he did it with 27%, now he rises to almost 34%. In the town where the most votes obtained a year ago, Elvas, in the Alentejo, with 36%, now shoots at 43.5%. The ascent is glowing if one takes into account that in 2022, when the PS obtained the absolute majority, they were at 7%. Three years before, Ventura was his only deputy.
Complex parliamentary arithmetic
Montenegro’s victory does not imply, however, the end of parliamentary instability in Portugal, where four elections have been held in the last five and a half years. Except for a surprising agreement with Chega, that Montenegro has repeatedly denied that he will probe, the relative majority he has obtained will not allow him to freely develop his political program, unless the new PS leaders decide to give him viability.
In his thanks speech, the prime minister has claimed that “the oppositions”, in veiled reference to the right and left, “respect and dialogue” with his government and with himself, while Prime Minister. He has also said that there will be more control of immigration and security, which could be interpreted as a wink to Chega.
Portugal will not be able, in any case, to hold elections before Portugal ”.
The rest of the parliamentary arc parties have obtained minor results. On the left, the Communist Party (in its electoral coalition, the CDU), stays in three deputies; The Bloco of Esquerda falls to one, while Livre leads the formations to the left of the PS with six parliamentarians. The JPP formation – autonomist for Madeira – enters for the first time in Parliament, and the animals of the PAN maintain their deputy.
The result shows that voters have punished Pedro Nuno Santos’s decision to reject the motion of trust that Montenegro presented, a negative in which he coincided with Chega. The prime minister made such a decision before the doubts arising after transcending in the Portuguese media that a family business charged periodic amounts of a company linked to interests in the betting business. His partial explanations did not convince the opposition.
Source: www.eldiario.es
