Luís Montenegro appoints a Government of heavyweights and without far-right ministers

A week after receiving the order from the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, to form a Government, Luís Montenegro returned to the Belém Palace on Thursday afternoon to inform the Head of State of the chosen names. It was a brief hearing, barely a quarter of an hour. Shortly after, the list that Montenegro had managed to keep secret and free from leaks was released. Montenegro has chosen to surround itself with a team of political weight to face the days of uncertainty and instability that lie ahead, given its parliamentary weakness.

The two strong men of the Executive have held positions of organic relevance. MEP Paulo Rangel, who will assume the Foreign Affairs portfolio, is vice president of the Social Democratic Party (PSD, center-right), while the new Minister of Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmiento, was the parliamentary spokesperson for the PSD in the previous legislature. He will be, like Rangel, Minister of State, which reveals the prominence that economic management and international relations will have in turbulent times. Another vice president of the PSD, Miguel Pinto Luz, will be in charge of Infrastructure and Housing, two areas that were separated in the previous Cabinet. The socialist António Costa opted in his Government to give autonomy to Housing to face the serious crisis that the country is suffering, where the middle classes and young people have many difficulties finding accommodation in the cities. Pinto Luz will also have to decide on the privatization of the airline TAP, the location of the new Lisbon airport or the promotion of railway connections, both internally and with Spain.

Miranda Sarmiento inherits a favorable scenario in the State accounts. In 2023, the largest budget surplus in the last 50 years was achieved, which will give the new team room to address the demands of professional groups that had been on a war footing for months to demand salary improvements, such as teachers, health workers or the security forces. security. The budgetary rigor that António Costa imposed on all of his governments will now allow his centre-right successor to have the financial margin to increase public spending and satisfy various demands.

It was assumed that there would be a seat for Nuno Melo, the leader of the minority and conservative Center Democratic and Social-Popular Party (CDS-PP), which was part of the Democratic Alliance electoral coalition promoted by Montenegro and which won the elections. by a narrow margin over the Socialist Party, and so it was. Melo will be in charge of the Defense portfolio. In the Government there will be no representation of the third member of the coalition, the Popular Monarchist Party, which lacks parliamentary or municipal strength.

Among the 17 ministers, there are seven women. Although the arithmetic parity is maintained (they are 41%), they represent a setback compared to the majority they had in the previous socialist Executive. One of them will be in charge of the Health portfolio, which is going through a serious crisis due to the lack of professionals and the demotivation of the existing ones. Ana Paula Martins, the new owner, has been in charge of managing the second largest hospital in Portugal until she resigned a few months ago.

Just as important as the ministers who enter are the candidates who have been left out. Despite pressure in recent weeks, Montenegro has kept its promise to exclude Chega, the far-right party. This marginalization has irritated the leader of the populist formation, André Ventura, who at this point seems more willing to make life difficult for the new Government than to make it easier. The bizarre episode of the vote for the president of the Assembly, which forced four rounds and was unblocked after the pact reached between the Socialist Party (PS) and the PSD to take turns in office, has only added more tension to the relations between Montenegro and Ventura.

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The proximity of the European elections will not help the understanding either, with Chega emboldened after receiving more than a million votes and clearly focused on repeating his success or even improving it. Before the European event, there will be another electoral test in the Madeira elections. Rebelo de Sousa decided to dissolve the regional Parliament and call early elections on May 26 in response to the political crisis caused by the involvement of the previous regional president Miguel Alburquerque (PSD) in an urban corruption scandal, which led to the arrest of two businessmen and the mayor of Funchal, also from the PSD.

Stability, in the air

The traditional stability of Portuguese political life was blown up last November with the resignation of Costa and the fall of his absolute majority government. Since then, he has held three early elections (general and regional elections in Madeira and Azores). The judicial investigation of the State Attorney General’s Office precipitated the advance in two cases.

Montenegro won the legislative elections on March 10 by a narrow margin against the socialists. The Executive of the leader of the PSD, who led the conservative Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition at the polls, will take office on April 2 after eight years of Governments by the socialist Costa. Due to the closeness of the electoral results, the future Cabinet will be forced to govern partly by decree and avoid parliamentary scrutiny whenever possible, where it only has the guaranteed vote of 80 deputies in a chamber of 230. Although the Chamber has a majority on the right, the fifty votes from the populist right do not guarantee support for Montenegro’s decisions, as was seen with the election of the president of the Assembly.

After his electoral promotion, Ventura demanded to enter the Government, but Montenegro already rejected having Chega in the campaign and has remained firm in that position. “He chose to govern and make agreements with the PS. Luís Montenegro, I tell you face to face, you will govern with the PS because it will not be with me,” Ventura challenged the future prime minister, who was listening to him on Wednesday from the front row of the PSD bench.

The new prime minister met with Costa on Wednesday to begin the portfolio transition process. Both politicians had already met last week in Brussels, where they had a coffee before the European Council meetings, the last ones attended by the socialist prime minister.

The PS has reached out to the center-right to negotiate specific budget modifications to improve the salaries of teachers, health workers and police, three groups that have been protesting for months, taking advantage of the budget surplus achieved in 2023 (1.21% of GDP). However, the new socialist leader, Pedro Nuno Santos, has reiterated that he does not wish to leave the opposition role to Chega and that he will vote against the 2025 Budget, a litmus test for the new Government of Montenegro.