Although Montenegro has denied any conflict of interest, the opposition accused the Prime Minister of indirectly enriched while serving at the top of the country’s executive power. The far -right group of Chega and the Portuguese Communist Party have deposited requests for parliamentary censorship against the government in the last three weeks, which have both failed.
No confidence
Although the requests for censorship have passed anywhere, questions concerning Spinumviva have lingered. The tenacity of the “scandal” finally convinced the Prime Minister to submit to a vote of parliamentary trust. “The country needs political clarification … to put an end to the atmosphere of innuendo and permanent intrigue,” he told legislators.
A majority of these same legislators refused to express his confidence In Montenegro Tuesday, ultimately ending his government. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa summoned the leaders of the main political parties of Portugal to Belém Palace and will hold consultations with each on Wednesday; On Thursday, he summoned an urgent session of the Council of State, after which he should dissolve the Parliament and call an early election for May 11 or May 18.
This means that Portugal will hold its third gap bulletin in three years and will launch an electoral marathon: two months after the legislative ballot, voters will be summoned to the ballot box to participate in the national local elections, while in January, they will be invited to choose the successor of Rebelo de Sousa as president.
Political crisis to come?
With this election in instruction which arrives so shortly after the previous ballot, the political landscape of Portugal remained at the time. According to the Latest surveysThe Democratic Alliance of Montenegro should win the most votes, closely in front of the Socialist Party. Support for Chega fell slightly, but the far -right party would probably remain the third group in Parliament.
But although the distribution of votes is probably the same among the parties, there are fewer options to form a stable government. Relations last year between groups in Parliament were largely cordial, but as the tensions of the Spinumviva scandal have accelerated considerably.
The Montenegro insists that he will be the candidate of his party and will therefore have a very personal participation in the elections; In the meantime, leader of the Socialist Party Pedro Nuno Santos will be under pressure so as not to lose a second electoral competition in the center on the right. The two politicians blaming each other for having sent the country to the polls, the countryside is likely to become rapid.
Without a faction capable of winning a majority of seats in the parliament, and neither the center left nor the right center wishing to forge pragmatic agreements, Chega is again ready to play the King-Fabricant. Montenegro has avoided collaborating with the ultra -nationalist group, but some members of its party – like the former PM Pedro Passos Coelho – Favor to come to “an understandingWith Chega. If the current chief of the democratic alliance underperform in the next elections, many will be impatient to see him withdraw to allow his predecessor to take the side in another direction.