Half a century after its transition from dictatorship to democracy, Portugal is in danger of losing the mantle of southern Europe’s most stable democracy.
Its general election on Sunday will be the third since 2022, as the country has struggled with corruption scandals, a fragmented parliament and weak government.
“We know you are tired of elections and worried about political stability, which we need along with the social, economic and financial stability of the country,” said the conservative acting prime minister, Luís Montenegro, as he campaigned in northern Portugal this week.
This marks a dramatic change for a country that had become known for its sober politics. Last year it celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, which peacefully removed the four-decades-long dictatorship. Despite several years of turmoil following the transition to democracy, in recent decades Portugal’s politics have been marked by their relative stability, as conservatives and social democrats have alternated in power, a characteristic that was particularly notable in the wake of the euro-zone crisis.
“The principal existing parties of centre-left and centre-right held up much better in Portugal than in the rest of southern Europe in the wake of the ‘Great Recession’ that began in 2008 and its austerity-oriented aftermath,” said Robert M Fishman, a professor of political science at Madrid’s Carlos III University.
This contrasted with Italy’s fragmented parliament and Spain’s polarisation and territorial tensions. In 2019, Portugal’s Socialist then-prime minister, António Costa, looked disdainfully across the border as he appealed to voters.
“What we don’t want is a repeat of what is happening in Spain,” he said. “We’ve had four years of stability and Spain has had four elections in four years.”
However, the tables have now been turned. Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been in office since 2018 while in 2023 Costa stepped down after being named as a suspect in a corruption investigation, although the inquiry found no evidence of wrongdoing by him. Montenegro won last year’s election, but his centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition formed a fragile minority government which collapsed after he lost a confidence vote in March.
That development was triggered by allegations of a conflict of interest on the part of the prime minister. In 2021, when he was outside politics, Montenegro created a company, Spinumviva, whose ownership he transferred to his wife. But, since taking office, the company, and therefore his family, have benefited from contracts awarded by the government. Montenegro’s failure to move swiftly to clarify or sever his links to Spinumviva allowed the scandal to snowball.
Montenegro said the election will “end the atmosphere of constant insinuations and intrigue”.
“We have elections due to a personal problem of the prime minister,” said António Costa Pinto, of the University of Lisbon’s Institute of Social Sciences, who sees the ballot as an opportunity for Montenegro to “re-legitimise himself” in the wake of the affair.
“The alternative would be to have a parliamentary commission [to investigate] and finish his political career,” he said.
Attempts by the Socialist Party candidate, Pedro Nuno Santos, to exploit the case on the campaign trail appear to have failed and he is trailing the conservative in polls.
“The Portuguese are too worried by more immediate problems,” said political commentator António Capinha. “They want to see solutions to the enormous structural problems in Portuguese society which have not been tackled for years.”
The cost of housing is one such issue, with rentals soaring in recent years, pricing many Portuguese out the market. A survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that, of 30 countries studied, Portugal had seen the worst deterioration in housing access over the last decade.
Low pensions and wages are further causes of discontent, triggering recent street protests, while an increase in migrant arrivals has created another challenge, with the far-right Chega’s tough stance on the issue heavily influencing public debate.
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But although the result of Sunday’s election looks relatively easy to predict, with Montenegro’s AD coalition apparently heading for victory, the make-up of the next government is less clear. While many other European conservative parties have accepted working with the far right to remain in power, so far Portugal has not followed suit, with Montenegro ruling out Chega as a partner.
However, as the third force in parliament and polling strongly, Chega’s potential role as kingmaker is undeniable. Pedro Passos Coelho, a former prime minister and leader of Montenegro’s centre-right Social Democrat Party (PSD), has underlined that possibility by highlighting his own ideological affinity with the far-right party.
A strong showing by Montenegro on Sunday would not only help him banish the cloud of scandal but could also allay pressure to work with Chega. Another, less controversial, possible partner for the conservatives would be the Liberal Initiative, which has been polling in fourth place.
In 2015, the Socialist Party managed to form a government, despite losing the election, with the support of a broad left-wing alliance which came to be known as the Geringonça, or “contraption”. However, with the overall vote for left-wing parties having dropped, such an outcome looks unlikely this time.
