Prime Minister Costa faces this Thursday his second motion of no confidence in a year after the fall of his infrastructure minister last week
The year 2023 has started in a very different way for the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, than the previous year. Almost twelve months after the absolute socialist majority was achieved in the legislative elections, the wear and tear of the Portuguese government has only increased. The latest scandal, led by the former Secretary of State for the Treasury Alexandra Reis and which has forced to resign to the Minister of Infrastructures, Pedro Nuno Santoshas put the opposition on a war footing and has caused Costa to face his second motion of no confidence in less than a year.
The main right-wing parties have attacked the socialist government after learning that Reis received compensation of half a million euros for leaving his post at the state airline TAP, a company that was rescued by the State and that has received billions of euros of public money. the conservative Social Democratic Party (PSD), the main opposition party, has promoted a urgent discussion in Parliament to receive explanations from the Executive, while the motion of censure has been presented by liberal initiativethe fourth political force in the chamber.
accelerated wear
The absolute socialist majority will prevent the motion of no confidence from prospering, but the government attrition de Costa is much higher than expected just a year after the election. More than a dozen senior executive officers have left their duties in recent months, including the former Minister of Health marta feared, who submitted his resignation in August after the chaos registered in the emergencies of the main hospitals in the country. Another famous resignation was that of former Assistant Secretary of StateCosta’s right-hand man, who was involved in a case of alleged corruption last November.
The departure of the head of Infrastructure, who was emerging as a possible successor to the prime minister, has forced Costa to reconfigure the executive with familiar faces to try to minimize the impact of the scandal as much as possible. The controversy, however, has not gone unnoticed by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousawho received a request from the far-right Chega party to convene early elections. sousa rebel Rule out that scenario for now. but it has warned that it will closely follow the restructuring of the Government and that it will act in case the changes are not enough.
opposition under construction
Despite the latest crises, the scenario of a call for elections before the end of the legislature, in 2026, is considered for now as somewhat unlikely. The absolute socialist majority is the main reason, to which is added a PSD that still does not have enough strength to be a real government alternative. The departure of the previous president of the formation, Rui Rio, after the failure in the legislative elections opened the door to a new leader, Louis Montenegrowhich is still in the process of defining the main lines of its project.
Rebelo de Sousa himself, from the same political family, recognized the lack of an alternative in opposition after the latest scandal in the Socialist Executive. “The people voted recently and we are also in a war and in an economic and financial crisis. It is not clear that there is a clear and strong alternative to what we currently have. experimentalism It is not the best for the health of democracies & rdquor ;. For now, the president continues to bet on stability and governability in the country, although the remaining three years of the legislature are looming. much more complicated than expected for the Portuguese socialists.