LAST UPDATE | 11 Mar 2024

PORTUGAL LOOKS SET for a period of political uncertainty after no party won a majority in a general election over the weekend.

However, the far right has experienced a surge into the role of potential kingmaker.

The centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD), which won the most seats in yesterday’s vote, is expected to be tapped in coming days to try to form a government.

AD beat the incumbent Socialist Party (PS) but took just 79 seats, far short of a majority in the 230-seat parliament.

Even with the backing of the tiny business-friendly Liberal Initiative (IL) party, the AD would still need the support of anti-immigration party Chega to reach a majority of 116 seats in the assembly.

Chega posted the biggest gains, winning 48 seats after just 12 in the last election in 2022, cementing its position in Portugal’s political landscape.

It has demanded to be part of a right-wing coalition government in exchange for its parliamentary support, but AD leader Luis Montenegro has repeatedly ruled out any post-election agreement with the party branded as xenophobic by its critics.

“Given the distribution of seats, we should not expect much stability,” Filipa Raimundo, a professor of political science at Lisbon’s ISCTE university, told AFP.

‘Challenge is great’

Javier Rouillet of the ratings agency Morningstar DBRS said passage of the 2025 budget would likely be ”the first major test” for an AD minority government, which “could face significant obstacles to legislating over time and require support on a case-by-case basis”.

“If the new government is unable to pass legislation, this could raise the prospect of another round of elections later this year or early next year,” he added.

While Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos has said his party would refrain from bringing down a centre-right minority government, he warned it would vote against its first budget.

Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos pictured today Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

“We will be the opposition, we will renovate the party and we will seek to win back the Portuguese who are dissatisfied with the PS,” he said early today after the results were out.

Faustino Lopes Baiao, a 70-year-old newspaper vendor in Lisbon, said the election results showed that voters were “fed up” with Portugal’s two mainstream parties.

“Maybe this will change things a bit for the better,” he said.

The AD campaigned on promises to bolster economic growth by cutting taxes, which the Socialists had warned would require cuts to pensions and other social spending.

“We know the challenge is great. It is going demand a great sense of responsibility, a great capacity for dialogue,” AD leader Montenegro said in his victory speech.

Far-right advance

The election results mark another advance for the far right in Europe, where populist and nationalist parties already govern – often in coalition – in countries such as Italy, Hungary and Slovakia, or are steadily gaining as in France and Germany.

Chega, which means “Enough”, calls for stricter controls over immigration, tougher measures to fight corruption and chemical castration for some sex offenders.

Formed just five years ago, Chega picked up its first seat in Portugal’s parliament in 2019, making it the first far-right party to win representation in the assembly since a military coup in 1974 toppled a decades-long right-wing dictatorship.

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will meet parties represented in parliament starting tomorrow and through to 20 March as part of the process of naming a new prime minister.

File image of Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The winners of four seats representing Portuguese voters living abroad are still to be determined, so he will name the new premier only once those results are known, his office said.

The election was called after Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa, 62, unexpectedly resigned in November following an influence-peddling probe that involved a search of his official residence and the arrest of his chief of staff.

File image of Antonio Costa Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Though Costa himself was not accused of any crime, he decided not to run again.