Portugal’s government loses trust, elections

Portugal’s center-rights minority government collapsed on Tuesday after losing the vote of faith, now the country is now expected to go to its third initial general election over many years.

MPs voted on 142–88, with zero restraints, against the proposal of confidence, which was presented in his job for 11 months by Prime Minister Luis Montenegro last Thursday. The opposition called the vote after questioning his integrity on the deal of a counseling firm, which is now run by his sons.

Montenegro has denied wrongdoing or any moral deficiencies by the firm, with contracts with private companies.

He said, “I have mixed my business and political activity, which is completely derogatory, and even derogatory. Once the untrue truth is not made, but it corrupts the political environment … This is the same that feeds localism,” he told Parliament before the vote.

The administration of Montenegro now considers a acting role. It is dependent on President Marcello Rebelo de Susa whether the parliamentary election is to be called after advising the main political parties on Wednesday and his advisory council on Thursday. He has said that a new ballot can be held in mid -May.

“We tried to do everything to avoid a snap election,” Montenegro told reporters after votes. His administration tried to agree on the conditions to avoid the main opposition socialists, or to withdraw the government’s proposal.

Montenegro said that he had proposed that he had to face an investigation by a parliamentary committee in his family company that would last two months, something that he had earlier rejected, but the socialists refused to set a time limit.

Montenegro said that any long investigation would have worn the government.

Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos labeled attempts to interact a few minutes before the vote “desperate and embarrassing”, stating that the Montenegro was convicted for the crisis and “disqualified”.

An initial ballot is all but indispensable, but analysts have not seen any strong mandate for any political power.

Voters are already showing electoral fatigue and disillusionment with politicians.

“It sounds like a joke, no one understands why there is a new election so soon. Politicians blame each other, but they are all irresponsible,” Joao Brito told a 70-year-old retired civil servant in Lisbon.

Edelino Maltez, a political scientist at the University of Lisbon, said the referendum surveys showed very little changes in voter preferences from the March 2024 election, which was won by the Democratic Alliance (ED) of Montenegro with a thin margin, winning 80 seats in a 230 -seat house.

Advertisement and socialists who now have 78 seats, most of the surveys have necks and necks.

“The problem is that the new election will not be decisive … advertisements and socialists are tied. This is a situation that will be difficult for them to navigate,” Maltez said. He said that a centralist agreement was the only solution between Montenegro’s social democrats and socialists, despite the difference in their policy proposals, he said.

In 1983–1985, two main rivals had such an agreement in Parliament only once.

“If they don’t do so, it would be more than the same instability,” Maltez said.