Portugal moved to the right in its parliamentary election: after almost all votes were counted, the conservatives replaced the ruling Socialists as the strongest force. The right-wing extremist Chega party also made significant gains.
The ruling Socialists lost their absolute majority in the early parliamentary elections in Portugal. After Sunday’s vote, everything indicated that the conservative party alliance Democratic Alliance (AD) will oust the Socialists (PS), who have been in power for a good eight years, from power.
According to the official results, the center-right alliance won 29.5 percent of the vote and will now have 79 of 230 members of parliament. The Socialists, who have been in power since 2015, only got 28.7 percent and 77 seats. So far, around 99 percent of the votes have been counted, and four seats are still missing to be distributed. 116 seats would be needed for an absolute majority.
Chega party becomes third strongest force
The right-wing extremist party Chega (“It’s enough”) more than doubled its share of the vote compared to the election two years ago to 18 percent and won 48 seats in the future parliament. Forming a coalition is likely to be very difficult given the majority situation. The major parties had ruled out right-wing populists taking part in government before the election.
AD top candidate Luís Montenegro had hoped for a coalition with the Liberal Initiative, but it only got five percent and eight seats – this means the small party is eliminated as a coalition partner. Montenegro nevertheless spoke of an “irrefutable victory”. Socialist rival Pedro Nuno Santos admitted defeat and announced he would go into opposition.
A coalition of main parties is considered impossible
A grand coalition is considered impossible in Portugal: the two main parties have insurmountable differences. Against this background, quite a few observers assume that new elections will take place soon. For the PS, which received 41 percent of the vote in 2022, the election outcome is a political disaster. So far, the Socialists have held 120 of the 230 seats in parliament due to the complicated system for distributing mandates.
New elections after resignation
The early election was called after Socialist Prime Minister António Costa resigned in November due to corruption allegations against those around him. Although the investigation against Costa himself was quickly closed, he did not run again in the new election.
His successor at the top of the party and PS lead candidate Pedro Nuno Santos is not without controversy: in 2022 he resigned as infrastructure minister due to a scandal surrounding severance payments to a manager of the state airline TAP. “Despite the minimal difference between us and the AD (…) we did not win the elections and we will go into opposition,” admitted the PS top candidate. In 2015, Costa formed a government with left-wing parties.
When he took office, he promised to reverse the austerity measures imposed by the previous conservative government in the wake of the financial crisis. Since then, Portugal has experienced an economic boom: purchasing power increased, unemployment fell, and public finances recovered. In the 2022 election, the Socialists won an absolute majority. Recently, however, according to opinion polls, more and more people are dissatisfied with the socialist government: in their opinion, despite the good economic situation, it has failed to address key issues such as the rampant housing shortage, the ailing state health care system and the education system in need of reform.
Anna Mundt, ARD Madrid, currently Lisbon, tagesschau, March 10, 2024 10:09 p.m