At the summits of the Iberian extreme right, the Basque Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, either did not teach his Portuguese counterpart André Ventura, president of Chega, how to play mus, or he did it badly. This was confirmed in the 24 hours of unprecedented blockade with which the legislature began in the Portuguese Parliament, between the beginning of Tuesday afternoon and yesterday, as it was not possible to elect the president of the constitutive session at the beginning of the constitutive session. chamber, the result of Ventura’s failed order to the incoming prime minister, the conservative and leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Luís Montenegro.
The new head of Government, who will take office on Tuesday, resolved the crisis with an agreement with the leader of the Socialist Party (PS), Pedro Nuno Santos. It consists of the fact that during the next four years the conservative José Pedro Aguiar Branco, elected yesterday, and a socialist will take equal turns at the head of the presidency of Parliament. This is a specific pact between the so-called “regime parties” for now.
Early on Tuesday afternoon, in the first task that corresponded to the new Parliament, the chaos that emerged from the polls on the 10th became evident, with the collapse of the traditional two-party system, the result of the prodigious rise from 12 to 50 seats of Chega, while the most voted candidate, the Democratic Alliance of the right-wing PSD and CDS, remained at 80 deputies, only three more than two years ago. But he still prevailed over a collapsed PS, which fell from 120 seats to 78. Since the conservative Montenegro does not give up on its “no means no” to Chega and the socialist Santos insists on acting as opposition, there is a dead end.
Thus it was not surprising that on Tuesday, for the first time, a president could not be appointed. There were precedents for candidates being rejected, but a solution had always been found. However, with the current correlation it was necessary for PSD, PS or Chega to change their position. The unexpected thing was how the blockade came about, since Ventura had announced a pact with the PSD, in exchange for a vice presidency.
However, on Tuesday several conservative leaders denied the agreement, stating that the PSD had limited itself to informing the main parties of Aguiar’s candidacy and its willingness to support the vice presidential candidates.
The management of the show fell, for reasons of seniority, to the communist António Filipe, just when the entire Portuguese left is in a catastrophic situation, after eight and a half years of hegemony.
With professionalism, restraint and a folksy air, Filipe handled the shocking situation that materialized after the first recount, in which Aguiar appeared with 89 votes, far from the absolute majority of 116 seats. And that was where Ventura showed that he performs much better as a television demagogue than as a strategist. Just after the scrutiny he reiterated to the media that he instructed his deputies to vote for the conservative candidate. However, this former seminarian hid the hand that threw the stone. There was a smoking gun, which is said in criminal law, because Aguiar’s 89 votes are those of PSD, CDS, the liberals and the animalist PAN parliamentarian, which follows a transversal strategy. Once the ruse was discovered, Ventura reacted by endorsing Montenegro’s “no means no,” linking his veto of Aguiar to the holding of the meeting with the conservative leader, which he has been asking for since election night to shape what he considers the popular mandate to seal an alliance of the right.
After failing new votes, in which the three main parties presented their candidates and the socialist Assís won in the minority, conservatives and socialists agreed yesterday to divide the legislature. Although the political fog seems impenetrable, immediate elections seem more likely than in four years. After Aguiar’s tempestuous election, an angry Ventura snapped at Montenegro that “you will govern with the PS, because you will not count on Chega in this political cycle.” But the socialists assure that they only acted out of institutional sense and Montenegro, silent these days, tries to continue playing equidistance, since the PSD did vote for the ultra vice president.
Since there is no investiture in Portugal and since the PS guarantees that Parliament will not overthrow Montenegro when it presents its program, the only thing guaranteed is that it will remain in power at least until the fall, when the budget is presented and Parliament can already be dissolved again. However, the first signs indicate that if there is a solution, it will involve specific agreements of the classic two-party system rather than the PP-Vox model.
