Portugal's centre right wins power with too few seats to govern alone

Portugal's new parliament struggled to elect its speaker before the incoming government had even taken office. When José Pedro Aguiar-Branco finally secured the post on 27 March with 160 votes, the solution came from an agreement between the centre right and the Socialists.

It was a small institutional decision with a large implication. Luís Montenegro's Democratic Alliance had won the 10 March election narrowly, taking 80 seats in a chamber of 230. He could become prime minister while refusing a coalition with the far-right Chega. Passing contested decisions would still require somebody else's help.

Chega's 50 seats, up from 12 in the previous election, give André Ventura a substantial platform from which to demand influence. The Socialists' 78 seats give Pedro Nuno Santos a different kind of power: he can facilitate a government of the centre right while deciding when to make it struggle.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa designated Montenegro as prime minister on 21 March, after the overseas count confirmed the result. The new cabinet is scheduled to take office on 2 April. At March's close, Portugal has chosen its next leader and already demonstrated the difficulty of organising the parliament he must work with.

Eighty is enough to begin, not enough to decide everything

The final result puts Montenegro's alliance only two seats ahead of the Socialists. It is a victory, but a narrow one. The departure from the previous parliament is much larger: the Socialists have lost their absolute majority, and Chega has expanded enough to make the old two-party rhythm less dependable.

The centre-right total includes the Social Democrats and their allied representation. The name can confuse readers outside Portugal: the PSD is the principal party of the centre right, while the Socialist Party occupies the centre left. Their labels should not be read as evidence that they offer nearly identical programmes.

A majority in the Assembly requires 116 seats. Montenegro's 80 fall well short, and adding the Liberal Initiative's eight would still leave a gap. A government cannot rely solely on those broadly market-oriented parties when a measure requires a majority against a united opposition.

Montenegro has ruled out a governing coalition with Chega. Maintaining that commitment leaves two broad routes: negotiate with the Socialists or seek support on individual measures from parties that remain outside the cabinet. These routes can overlap without forming a permanent alliance.

The distinction between a coalition and parliamentary support is crucial. A party can vote for a tax measure or an institutional appointment without receiving ministers. It can also abstain on a government programme without endorsing the entire agenda. Minority government depends on these differences.

Ventura wants the election result to be read as a mandate for a right-wing governing arrangement that includes his party. Montenegro's response is that a shared position to the right of the Socialists does not erase differences in conduct, credibility and policy. That disagreement will shape which votes are presented as routine cooperation and which become tests of principle.

The Socialists have said they will allow the centre right to begin governing, but Santos has resisted the suggestion that this obliges his party to approve a full annual budget. His distinction is understandable: enabling a transfer of power after an election is different from underwriting the winner's programme.

That leaves Montenegro with an incentive to divide his agenda into measures for which different partners can justify support. It also creates a risk of inconsistency. A collection of individually popular measures may produce a fiscal plan that no party has accepted as a whole.

The new parliament's behaviour over its speaker supplies an early warning. Institutional business that might once have been straightforward can now become an opportunity to test the government's numbers and expose disagreements. The first major lesson of the election has arrived before the first cabinet meeting.

The speaker's deal shows a route around Chega

Aguiar-Branco's election followed failed attempts and a negotiation between the PSD and PS. Under the announced arrangement, he would serve for the first two years and a Socialist would take the position for the following two. The immediate result was a clear majority for the office.

That compromise gives the two established parties a way to maintain parliamentary functioning without making Chega the indispensable broker. It also permits each to describe the agreement as institutional cooperation rather than a programme for joint government.

The difference will be harder to maintain on budgets. Choosing a speaker concerns the chamber's operation. A budget allocates benefits and costs among voters. The Socialists can defend the first as a contribution to stability while demanding substantial changes before supporting the second.

Ventura can use the same agreement to argue that the older parties close ranks when their position is threatened. That claim does not invalidate cooperation between elected parties. It does identify a political cost they must consider when deciding how much business to settle through bilateral arrangements.

A transparent agreement is easier to defend than an informal understanding whose scope emerges only through later votes. The parties should specify what they have agreed, what remains outside the arrangement and how it serves the institution. Otherwise an arrangement intended to reduce uncertainty can become a source of suspicion.

Santos had already indicated room for cooperation on limited measures concerning public-sector careers and on a decision about Lisbon's airport. Those examples identify areas where the parties may share a practical objective despite disagreement over the wider economic programme.

A narrowly defined amending budget could therefore be easier to negotiate than the next full state budget. The distinction concerns scope: an agreement to address a particular pay issue does not imply approval of every tax or spending proposal the government may later make.

The danger for the Socialists is appearing to provide stability without influence. If they facilitate decisions but cannot show how they changed them, Chega can claim to be the only effective opposition. If they block too readily, Montenegro can blame them for making the country ungovernable.

The danger for Montenegro is becoming dependent on negotiations he cannot fully control. Every request for Socialist cooperation may require concessions that disappoint his own voters. Every attempt to obtain Chega's votes may reopen questions about the boundary he drew during the campaign.

None of this makes a minority cabinet inherently doomed. It makes parliamentary management a central part of governing. The relevant early measure will be whether the parties can distinguish matters requiring continuity from those on which they intend to compete.

A protest vote acquires an institutional base

Chega's increase to 50 MPs is more than a rise in television visibility. A larger parliamentary group gains staff, committee presence and opportunities to question ministers. It can divide work across policy areas rather than relying entirely on Ventura's personal interventions.

That growth brings its own organisational test. Candidates elected through a rapid expansion must develop parliamentary discipline and policy competence. A party that campaigns against the established system will now be judged on how it uses the institutional resources voters have given it.

The result cannot be attributed confidently to a single grievance. The campaign combined corruption allegations, dissatisfaction with public services, pressure on housing and arguments about immigration. Different voters may have supported Chega for different reasons, including a desire to punish the parties that alternated in government.

The election followed António Costa's resignation in November amid an investigation touching people and decisions around his administration. Allegations and investigations must remain distinguished from findings of guilt. Their political impact can be substantial before a court establishes what happened.

For established parties, an anti-corruption response needs to be more than an assertion that populists are exploiting the issue. Transparent procurement, effective scrutiny and clear conflict-of-interest rules address the underlying concern. They also create standards against which newcomers can be assessed.

Housing pressures require a similarly concrete response. A voter struggling to find an affordable home may hear arguments about tourism, investment, wages and migration as explanations of the same problem. Those causes require different policy tools, and reducing the debate to one source can produce ineffective measures.

Public services create another constraint on the incoming cabinet. Promising tax reductions while improving healthcare, education and public-sector staffing demands a credible account of resources. A narrow parliamentary base makes it more important to explain which choices are affordable together.

Chega can press these contradictions without assuming responsibility for the whole budget. That is an advantage of remaining outside government. It can support a popular spending proposal, reject a tax increase and then criticise the resulting fiscal tension.

Montenegro's answer cannot rest only on refusing a coalition. That is a position about political partners, not a solution to the grievances on which Ventura campaigns. The government will need visible delivery that voters can distinguish from another cycle of promises and blame.

The approaching fiftieth anniversary of the 1974 democratic revolution gives the result additional resonance. Portugal's democratic institutions are accommodating a substantially changed electorate. Their strength will be measured by lawful competition, scrutiny and effective representation, not by the preservation of a familiar party balance.

Brussels will see continuity, with less room for error

The PSD and PS both place Portugal within the European Union and NATO. The election therefore does not suggest an immediate reversal of the country's basic external orientation. Its European effect is more likely to come through domestic governing capacity and the priorities of the new cabinet.

EU recovery funding is a practical example. Projects depend on national administration, procurement and the completion of agreed milestones. A change in government can review priorities, but prolonged uncertainty or repeated redesign can delay work whose timetable extends beyond one political term.

Portugal's public-debt position also makes fiscal credibility important. The debate is not simply whether to spend more or less. It concerns the balance between durable revenue, temporary measures, investment and the commitments that remain after a programme's initial funding ends.

The Socialists' election programme emphasised budget balance and a continued reduction in debt alongside public-service commitments. That indicates that fiscal responsibility is not a subject belonging exclusively to the centre right. The parties will disagree over distribution and methods even where they share broad objectives.

For Montenegro, the challenge is to show how his own tax and investment proposals fit together under European fiscal obligations. A minority government has less ability to impose a single coherent settlement. It must avoid offering different partners separate concessions whose combined cost undermines the original plan.

Energy and infrastructure decisions will also test continuity. Large projects require permitting, investment and coordination with neighbouring systems. They can be delayed by political uncertainty even where no major party opposes the underlying objective.

The proposed airport decision illustrates how a long-running national issue can become a candidate for cross-party cooperation. A durable settlement would need to survive changes of government. Securing that durability involves evidence and public explanation, not just agreement between leaders about the desirability of deciding something.

On European security, Portugal's Atlantic position and alliance commitments remain relevant even though the country is geographically distant from Ukraine. The new government will participate in decisions on defence resources and support for Kyiv while managing domestic demands on the same budget.

A smaller member state can influence EU decisions through preparation and dependable coalition-building. Cabinet instability can weaken that influence if ministers cannot commit confidently or if parliamentary bargaining repeatedly changes their mandate. The election's European significance therefore lies partly in whether Lisbon can remain a reliable negotiating partner while its domestic politics fragment.

The budget will supply the real count

The first programme presented after the cabinet takes office will show how Montenegro translates the campaign into a governing sequence. Some decisions can be made administratively; others need legislation and an identifiable parliamentary majority. Publishing that sequence would make the minority strategy easier to assess.

The next full budget is likely to be a more demanding test than the investiture period. Parties will have to decide whether their policy objections justify the consequences of defeat. Until that vote, claims that a particular opposition party will always support or always block the government are predictions rather than established facts.

The president retains an important constitutional role and can encourage stability, but he cannot negotiate every line of legislation for the cabinet. The government must build working relationships inside the Assembly rather than rely on presidential authority to compensate for missing seats.

The speaker's compromise demonstrates that the two largest parties can reach an agreement when they regard the institution's functioning as the priority. It does not show how far either will go when the issue is a tax rate, a public salary or a spending limit.

Portugal ends March with a centre-right prime minister-designate, a far stronger radical right and a Socialist opposition capable of deciding when the government receives room to act. Montenegro has kept Chega outside his proposed cabinet. The coming term will test whether he can keep it from determining the terms on which that cabinet governs.

The answer will not come from counting every vote cast by Chega as proof of a secret coalition, or every Socialist abstention as proof of surrender. It will come from the agreements the government makes, the policies those agreements produce and whether voters can identify who accepted responsibility for the result.