AD centre-right alliance in unconvincing win, overshadowed by rise of populist CHEGA
For once, the pre-election polls were all spot on: Portugal voted for change – after eight years of Socialism tarnished by scandals. But ‘the change’ has left the country in a new mire of almost impossible choices.
AD (the democratic alliance bringing together centre-right PSD, CDS-PP and PPM, one of the oldest parties in the country’s democratic history, seated in traditional values) won Sunday’s legislative elections, with 29.49% of the vote (1.811 million votes) – resulting in 79 MPs.
Still to come is the question of emigré constituencies which vote four MPs into parliament (and are traditionally evenly split between PS Socialists and PSD centre-right). But even if AD ‘wins’ all of these (which is unlikely), it still won’t have the numbers it needs to form a stable government.
AD’s tacit allies, Iniciativa Liberal, can only muster eight MPs (a number unchanged by these elections) – which is still far too short of the 116 MPs needed for a working majority.
At the other end of the scale, PS Socialists emerged with 28.7% of the vote (translating into 1.760 million supporters) – giving 77 MPs. With the gains of the other left-leaning parties in parliament (all of them avidly anti-right), PS Socialists could easily form a new left-wing ‘geringonça’ (mish-mash, in the style of the first government of António Costa in 2015) and pull the rug from under AD’s feet – a similar scenario to what recently took place in Spain.
But there is one problem: CHEGA …
CHEGA stormed these elections. Depending on what media sources one reads, the populist right wing (some say ‘extreme right wing’) party succeeded in achieving everything the polls warned it would.
CHEGA has quite literally turned Portugal’s left/right dichotomy of the last 50 years into a rowdy three-way street in which the new arrivals (now a bloc of 48 MPs) are seen as deeply undesirable.
Within hours of the election results, an online petition had begun against any kind of government with CHEGA – something AD’s leader Luís Montenegro has stressed time and again will not happen: “No means no” is the phrase best remembered through this campaign. AD does not intend to govern with CHEGA.
But that cannot deny the fact that over 1.1 million Portuguese voted for CHEGA, and their ‘forever pumped’ leader André Ventura is holding all the cards: the way these election results have fallen means that CHEGA’s support for AD will be crucial.
With CHEGA’s approval of policy decisions, AD will have an absolute majority in parliament. Without it, AD’s future executive will fall at the first hurdle (which could be a rectifying budget, possibly coming within weeks of the government taking office).
PS leader Pedro Nuno Santos has left no doubts: his party has conceded defeat, but that is where concessions stop. It is united; it is ready to “renew” and “win back the trust” of the voters that left it in droves on Sunday, and it will “resist all pressure” to “help AD pass fundamental policy instruments, such as the State Budget”, or even a rectifying budget.
Luís Montenegro is effectively between a rock and a hard place
Political commentators have been predicting multiple scenarios since Sunday night – none of them stellar: the government could last a few months, possibly a year, but all suggest new elections are on the horizon.
President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa – who tried so valiantly to warn citizens ahead of the elections that the wider geopolitical context is dire, and the country needs to be united – has started hearing the various parties with seats in the new parliament, and will do so until next Wednesday, at which point pundits believe he will swear Luís Montenegro in as Portugal’s next prime minister leading a relative majority that could be relatively short-lived.
Except that between all the noise, all the predictions of “disaster”, there are a few positives to hold onto.
First, CHEGA’s André Ventura has given one of his animated interviews (to CNN/TVI) in which he professed to be solely concerned with Portugal’s political stability.
“I am available to sacrifice everything for the Portuguese to have stability,” he told his interviewers. “We are available to give Portugal a stable government (…) I have only one thing in mind, and that it is to give Portugal a stable government for the next four years.”
AD, he suggested, “is scared to give us a hand, thinking we will take the arm…” It is a Portuguese expression about ‘taking advantage’. But according to Ventura, what his party wants, and “deserves”, is recognition (for the number of votes cast).
An agreement between AD and CHEGA would involve “a convergence of decisions regarding the composition of the government, what that government will be, the main measures of that government and the objectives we want to achieve”.
“Personally, I don’t demand to be in the government, but what makes sense is for the two parties to decide who makes up the government …
“Our point has never been places (in government),” he insisted, warning that what CHEGA will not accept is “any solution that does not respect the relative difference and the relative distribution of votes”.
To be fair, in a democracy, that is only understandable. But such is the level of outrage within the ‘establishment’ in Portugal that CHEGA’s arguments are viewed with enormous suspicion.
While CHEGA says it is focused on “political stability” – the nirvana so desired by President Marcelo – detractors talk of “extremism”, “racism”, “xenophobia”.
In his declaration of a united Socialist opposition, Pedro Nuno Santos did not once mention political stability: he described his mission as one to “convince and bring back with us all those who are unhappy with the political system and with the PS”, which, in the final analysis, suggests Socialists are still looking backwards (as critics throughout their campaign accused them of doing).
“Full coffers” await new government
These legislative elections, which cost the country at least €24 million, marked a watershed in Portuguese politics – a moment when everything changed. And with a wider world that is changing so rapidly, how can our politicians presume there is any going back?
A second positive to remember is that the new government will be inheriting “full coffers” – meaning, says tabloid Correio da Manhã, that it will be in a position to effect changes of the kind CHEGA has been demanding.
As Ventura told his interviewers on Monday: “Imagine that Luís Montenegro said to me, ‘look, ditch your call for life sentences (for serious crimes), we’ll increase terms for other crimes, and in exchange we’ll increase ‘risk subsidies’ for police and increase pensions. I would agree then and there!”
The next few days of ‘behind-the-scenes’ conversations will be key, which is possibly why President Marcelo is spinning out all the hearings with parties until next Wednesday.
By NATASHA DONN
