After Luís Montenegro’s center-right government fell, voters will head back to the polls in May.
For the third time in three years, Portugal is poised to hold a snap election. POLITICO breaks down the factors forcing voters back to the polls and what the latest developments mean for the country’s political stability.
Following Socialist Prime Minister António Costa’s resignation in connection with an influence-peddling investigation in November 2023, a national election was held in Portugal one year ago. Luís Montenegro’s Democratic Alliance coalition won the most votes and was subsequently able to form a minority government that seemed surprisingly durable. Indeed, after the center-right politician managed to get his budget passed last fall, many assumed his administration would be in power for the foreseeable future.
Earlier this year, however, the Portuguese press began reporting on Spinumviva, a data protection consultancy the prime minister founded in 2021. When the firm was launched, Montenegro was an entrepreneur with no active political role, and he transferred ownership of the company to his wife and sons the following year. But questions were raised as to whether the center-right politician personally benefited from the consultancy, whose clients include several companies that have contracts with the government.
Although Montenegro denied any conflict of interest, the opposition accused the prime minister of indirectly enriching himself while serving atop the country’s executive branch. The far-right Chega group and the Portuguese Communist Party filed parliamentary censure motions against the government over the past three weeks, both of which failed.
Although the censure motions went nowhere, questions regarding Spinumviva lingered. The tenacity of the “scandal” ultimately convinced the prime minister to submit himself to a parliamentary vote of confidence. “The country needs political clarification … to end the atmosphere of permanent insinuations and intrigues,” he told lawmakers.
A majority of those same lawmakers declined to express confidence in Montenegro on Tuesday, automatically ending his government. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa summoned the leaders of Portugal’s main political parties to Belém Palace and will hold consultations with each on Wednesday; on Thursday he convened an urgent session of the Council of State, after which he is expected to dissolve parliament and call a snap election for either May 11 or May 18.
That means Portugal will hold its third snap ballot in three years, and kick off an electoral marathon: Two months after the legislative ballot, voters will be summoned back to the polls to take part in nationwide local elections, while in January they will be asked to choose Rebelo de Sousa’s successor as president.
With this snap election coming so soon after the previous ballot, Portugal’s political landscape remains much as it was then. According to the latest surveys, Montenegro’s Democratic Alliance is projected to win the most votes, narrowly ahead of the Socialist Party. Support for Chega has fallen slightly, but the far-right party would likely remain the third-largest group in the parliament.
But while the distribution of votes is likely to remain largely the same among the parties, there are fewer options for forming a stable government. Relations last year among the groups in the parliament were largely cordial, but since the Spinumviva scandal tensions have ratcheted up dramatically.
Montenegro insists he will be his party’s candidate and will therefore have a very personal stake in the election; meanwhile, Socialist Party leader Pedro Nuno Santos will be under pressure not to lose a second electoral contest to the center right. With both politicians blaming each other for sending the country back to the polls, the campaign is likely to get ugly fast.
With no faction likely to win a majority of seats in the parliament, and neither the center left nor the center right eager to forge pragmatic agreements, Chega is once again poised to play kingmaker. Montenegro has avoided collaborating with the ultranationalist group, but some members of his party — such as former PM Pedro Passos Coelho — favor coming to “an understanding” with Chega. Should the Democratic Alliance’s current leader underperform in the upcoming election, many will be eager to see him step aside to allow his predecessor to take the party in another direction.
