Deep divisions: Portugal fails again in election of parliament speaker The dubious attacks in Russia in 1999 – were they Putin’s act?

During Tuesday’s constituent meeting in Lisbon, all candidates fell far short of the necessary absolute majority of 116 votes in the third and final round of voting, shortly before midnight. MPs will meet again on Wednesday to try again. Parties can then also appoint new candidates.

The first day of the meeting made it clear that the new Prime Minister of the southwestern European country, Luís Montenegro of the conservative Democratic Alliance (AD), will have a difficult term in office. His candidate for the parliamentary presidency, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, came second in the third ballot with 88 votes, behind only Francisco Assis of the Socialist Party PS (90).

Montenegro was appointed head of government last week by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. His alliance received the most votes in the early elections on March 10, narrowly surpassing the Socialists, who have been in power for eight years but clearly lacked their own parliamentary majority. Montenegro wants to present its cabinet on Thursday. The new government will officially take office on April 2.

In the new parliament, the AD represents 80 of the total of 230 members. The PS lost 42 of its previous seats and has only 78 MPs. The big winner of the elections is André Ventura’s right-wing populist party Chega (Enough), which Montenegro and other critics classify as xenophobic and racist. It succeeded in more than quadrupling the number of mandates: from twelve to more than fifty seats.

Since a ‘grand coalition’ between conservatives and socialists is considered impossible in Portugal and Montenegro rejects cooperation with Chega, governing is likely to be very difficult for the 51-year-old. If he does not win a majority in the parliamentary vote on his government program, new elections would become more likely. (sda/dpa)