Start big, with populist measures almost impossible to disagree with
With Portugal’s left-wing parties already trying to construct an alternative to the AD centre right alliance voted into power last Sunday, AD is working just as intently to ensure that it is not unceremoniously toppled.
The tactics, according to an article in Diário de Notícias, are to start big: use the first 60 days to enact populist measures, “if possible using the PS State Budget, pushing the opposition to either approve or veto the proposals; to negotiate measure by measure – and use deadlines in which the President will not be able to dissolve parliament”.
Written following conversations with members of AD’s ‘inner circle’, the idea is to show the electorate exactly what the other parties are doing. If opposition parties block measures/ try and bring down the government solely for their own purposes, AD means to make this clear so that its own position can only be ‘consolidated’ in the event of another call for elections…
And this time round, Portugal’s centre-right is taking the reins with “the coffers full” (as pointed out by Correio da Manhã yesterday).
For the moment, Montenegro is said to be ‘studying the State Budget’, to see how much leeway the document gives his coalition’s programme. The idea is to ‘start as soon as possible’ – and with luck avoid the need for any kind of ‘rectifying budget’.
Said DN’s sources, there are still “all the PRR (Brussel’s plan for recovery and resilience) funds” which AD’s inner circle believes “will have to be reprogrammed because of the low levels of execution” this far.
If the plans pan out in AD’s favour, the alliance would reach November – at which point it has to present its State Budget for the following year.
Again, the feeling is if it is a ‘good budget’, other parties will find it difficult to veto. In truth, this will be AD’s greatest test – and this is where the tactics are to a large extent banking on the message that came out of these elections.
Luís Montenegro’s interpretation of the fractured votes is that Portuguese citizens do not want the ‘old’ political blocs of the past: they want parties with the capacity for dialogue. This means, dialogue in its broadest sense – not just with the right, but with any party that wants to behave ‘sensibly’/ in the interests of the country’s voters.
In other words, we’re back again at showing up political activity powered by ‘self interest’ over national interest – which, when all is said and done, is how the nation arrived at last Sunday’s vote: voters have had ‘enough’ of parties’ political navel gazing.
Thus, according to DN, the ‘about to be new’ political leadership is “very confident” of a strategy that will not only work, it will work ‘for the country’.
Written agreements/ pacts etc. will not be required: AD will simply be relying on parties’ good sense.
That said, time is of the essence. “Luís Montenegro’s idea is to start as fast as possible presenting reformist and popular measures”, says the DN article.
“States of grace are getting shorter and shorter. People are very anxious for change. That is what these elections have shown us. The will for change has happened throughout the country”.
Even as DN wrote its article, teachers were upping the ante, saying they want their issues dealt with ‘in three months’ (a timeline in none of the parties’ electoral programmes). AD has said it will present an emergency plan for teachers, as well as police and the health service, within its first 60 days – thus hopes are that this can be enacted pronto.
DN’s text refers to AD’s emergency plan having “an elevated level of maturity”, due to work done by the National Strategic Council following contact with civil society.
It is a plan that has been worked on for “a long time”, said one of DN’s sources. It “will reinforce support of the electorate and make it more difficult for the opposition – whether from the left or the right – to bring down the government of Luís Montenegro”.
Again, reading between the lines, the centre-right alliance seeks to promote measures for which people are clamouring – even though the left has attempted to paint it as a political force that will drag the country backwards.
DN’s concludes that much of AD’s tactics owe themselves to the first minority government of Cavaco Silva: Cavaco’s first government lasted just two years, but it paved the way for two absolute majorities.
If the November budget gets accepted as AD believes it will, the next step will be to survive until September 2025 – the date on which Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa loses his powers to dissolve the Assembly of the Republic (because the presidential elections are six months away). A new President will have to wait six months (after taking office in March 2026) before being able to dissolve Parliament, and this will take the country under an AD government almost to the end of 2027.
Expectations are that, in that time, Luís Montenegro will have earned his promised reputation as a “reformist”, which will swell the AD vote to a stable governing majority.
Fingers will be crossed on all sides now, as the first hurdle is seeing the AD government sworn into office after March 20.
