Portugalâs president has invited LuÃs Montenegro, the leader of the Democratic Alliance (AD), to try to form a minority government after a long-awaited count of overseas votes confirmed a narrow election victory for the centre-right bloc.
Montenegro was summoned to the presidential palace in Lisbon shortly after midnight on Thursday where President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who has spent over a week consulting party leaders, formally nominated him to head the government.
âThe AD won the election … [so] the president … decided to nominate LuÃs Montenegro as prime minister,â the presidentâs office said in a statement.
Overall, the AD won 80 seats in the 230-seat legislature, which is expected to return next week, followed by the Socialists at 78 seats and the far-right Chega party, which was founded just five years ago, with 50.
After meeting Rebelo de Sousa for a first time on Wednesday afternoon, Montenegro said that on behalf of his party he had âexpressed our willingness to take on the leadership of the government and to be appointed prime ministerâ.
Montenegro has pledged not to enter a coalition or even an informal alliance with Chega â his only route to a majority government â and must now try to agree with the Socialist party (PS) the outline of a legislative programme the centre-left party will back in parliament.
On Tuesday Rebelo de Sousa met the Socialistsâ new leader, Pedro Nuno Santos, who promised the party would be a âstable, strong and solidâ opposition, but also that it would be a âresponsible oppositionâ that was âopen to agreementsâ.
The PS would not back proposals with which it did not agree, he said, but nor would it oppose âwhere there are common points of viewâ, such as on the need to boost pay for public sector workers including teachers, health professionals and police.
Chega, which emerged as potential kingmaker after campaigning on a platform calling for stricter controls on immigration and tougher measures to fight corruption, has demanded a government role in exchange for supporting an AD-led administration.
The populist partyâs leader, André Ventura, warned after his meeting with Rebelo de Sousa on Monday that if AD continued to reject a coalition with Chega, voters would inevitably blame the centre-right party for any political instability that ensued.
âWe are continuing to put in all our efforts ⦠to reach an agreement that will ensure the countryâs stability,â Ventura said. âIf there is no government agreement, the AD will be responsible for the instability that will result.â
António Costa Pinto, a political scientist at the University of Lisbon, told Agence France-Presse that a minority administration would ânot necessarilyâ be unstable because ânone of the actors has an interest in triggering a crisisâ.
Another political scientist, José Adelino Maltez, told the Diario de Noticias newspaper that âin political terms there is no crisis. Seventy percent of the AD programme is 70% of the PS program. There is great stability on all the essential objectives.â
However, Montenegro is already coming under heavy pressure from a small but determined group of MPs from his Social Democratic party (PSD) who argue that a stable majority government in alliance with Chega is the only responsible course.
Without it, Montenegro will be obliged to try to pass legislation on a case-by-case basis, and his government could face a survival test as early as this autumn when it tries to draw up the 2025 budget. A rejected budget could lead to a new election.