A few months after Prime Minister of eight years Antonio Costa resigned last November after police raided his home in a corruption investigation, Portuguese citizens go to the polls again on Sunday to elect the next their government.
As is usually the case in the Iberian country, the two largest parties, the center-right Social Democratic Party and the center-left Socialist Party, are expected to claim first place. In these elections, however, there are two important parameters that differentiate them from previous electoral contests. The first concerns the strengthening of the center-right through the electoral alliance of the largest party in the area, the so-called Social Democratic Party (PSD), with two smaller ones: the People’s Party (CDS-PP) and the Monarchist Party (PPM).
This coalition, which is called the Democratic Alliance (Aliança Democrática) according to recent polls he seems to be ahead in the election race. Specifically, the center-right Alliance registers a percentage of 32%, leaving the Socialist Party in second place with 28%.
It is recalled that just two years ago, in the 2022 elections, the Socialist Party had formed an independent government, with its electoral performance reaching 41.5% of the vote. But it seems that the corruption scandals that rocked the party, combined with the resignation of its longtime undisputed leader and prime minister, Antonio Costa, have greatly affected the electoral performance of the Socialists.
The role of the extreme right
The second important parameter concerns the rise of the extreme right. Andre Ventura’s Chega party, which means enough, is seeing its numbers more than double in the 2022 election, according to opinion polls.
Specifically, from 7.3% in 2022, Chega is expected to register an electoral performance that reaches 17%. This percentage may bring it back to third place, but the apparent inability to form a government from both the Democratic Alliance and the Socialist Party is very likely to give Chega the role of regulator of developments.
The two gladiators
When it comes to who will be the next prime minister, the leaders of the two largest factions naturally hold the most chances. On the one hand, Luis Montenegro, president of the Social Democratic Party and head of the Democratic Alliance. The 51-year-old lawyer (profession of both his father and his grandfather) from Porto aspires to restore the center-right to the government, after 2015 and Pedro Passos Coeliou. Montenegro has been a member of parliament since 2002 and his program includes the privatization of the country’s state carrier, TAP Air Portugal, as well as a series of measures to further liberalize the economy.
On the other side is the 46-year-old economist, Pedro Nuno Santos, who was Minister of Infrastructure and Housing in Antonio Costa’s government, before being elected to the position of General Secretary of the Socialist Party. Santos is largely seen as a continuation of Costa’s populist policies, yet he does not seem, at least for now, to have the same popularity as the outgoing prime minister.
The third pole
As for the third pole, that of the extreme right, the rise of Chega seems to have whetted the appetite of its president, Andre Ventura, who openly expresses even governmental ambitions. Although this seems improbable, it is not at all out of the realm of possibility to enter into negotiations the day after the election, with the Democratic Alliance, so that a government emerges, once the percentage that the united center-right will receive in its elections Kyriakis does not give it the possibility of forming an independent government.
As for Ventura himself, he is a 41-year-old former member of the Social Democratic Party, from which he left in 2018, while he first became known by commentating on sports on television.
#Portugal #polls #rise #gladiators
