Every parliamentary region of Portugal in state of political flux
With elections on the mainland in less than three weeks’ time, and the dissolution of parliament tipped for the regional government of Madeira sometime next month, the Azores too is steeped in political uncertainty.
Pedro Catarino, the representative of the Republic in the regional archipelago, begins hearings this morning with political parties (with elected representatives in the region’s Legislative Assembly) before he appoints the new regional premier on Tuesday.
Six hearings are scheduled over the next 24-or so hours.
The leaders of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), People’s Party (CDS-PP) and People’s Monarchist Party (PPM) – the parties in the coalition that ‘won’ the February 4 regional legislative elections, and which has governed the region since 2020 – are the first to be received.
Then, it will be the moment for leaders of the Azores’ PS Socialist Party, followed by CHEGA and Bloco de Esquerda in the afternoon.
Tomorrow morning Catarino will hear the leaders of the IL (Liberal Initiative) and PAN (Peoples Animals Nature) party.
Then, at 5pm, he is scheduled to make a statement – without the right to questions from journalists – in which he will nominate the next regional premier.
This will all be a fine exercise in political juggling: The PSD/CDS-PP/PPM coalition may have won the regional elections (with 43.56% of the vote, securing 26 of the 57 members of the Legislative Assembly) but it is three MPs short of an absolute majority.
Coalition leader José Manuel Bolieiro has said he intends to form a government based on its plurality of seats in the assembly, without formal agreements with other parties.
This led PS Socialists (who have 23 elected MPs) to announce they would be voting against the coalition government’s programme.
CHEGA potentially holds the ‘trump cards’, in that it has five MPs, but it has said it will only support the coalition government is it is included within the executive, and if CDS-PP and PPM are kept out.
Bloco de Esquerda, PAN and IL have only one elected MP each, so hold little sway unless they band together with PS Socialists to create a kind of ‘deadlock’: 26 MPs on both sides.
In the last regional legislative elections, in 2020, the PS won the largest number of votes but lost its previous majority in the assembly. Catarino appointed Bolieiro, who formed a post-election coalition with the CDS-PP and PPM and then signed confidence-and-supply agreements with CHEGA and the IL, guaranteeing his government a majority of 29.
In March last year, IL and CHEGA broke with the confidence-and-supply agreements, leading to the collapse of the regional government’s 2024 draft budget, and the calling of what have effectively become inconclusive elections…
Source material: LUSA
