Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
12-03-2024
LISBON: Portugal’s centre right has claimed a narrow election victory, but has little chance of forming a majority government.
Democratic Alliance leader Luis Montenegro told supporters that the Portuguese had voted for change, although the margin of victory was less than convincing.
Both main parties polled about 29% of the vote.
Only the far-right Chega could claim a clear-cut success.
Five years after it broke into Portuguese politics, the party led by former football pundit André Ventura has secured 18% of the vote and 48 seats in the 230-seat parliament.
Political commentators say Portugal is facing its most fragmented parliament since the end of its dictatorship half a century ago.
Ten million Portuguese had the chance to cast their vote in Sunday’s snap election, four months after Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa stood down amid corruption allegations, even though he was never named as a suspect.
It was Costa who warned Portuguese TV viewers late on Sunday night that they could be heading for a “possible tie” between the Socialists (PS) and the centre-right Democratic Alliance, with only four seats outside Portugal yet to declare but not long afterwards, the man who replaced him as Socialist leader, Pedro Nuno Santos, conceded victory, announcing: “We are going to lead the opposition, we will renew the party and attempt to retrieve those Portuguese who are unhappy with the PS.”
Luís Montenegro told supporters that he was now convinced that the president of the republic would hand the centre right the task of forming the next government.
“I always said winning the elections would mean having one vote more than any other candidate, and only in those circumstances would I accept to be prime minister.”
With all the votes counted, other than the four external seats, his Democratic Alliance was on 79 seats, two more than his Socialist rivals.
He said the voters had made clear they wanted a new government, a change of policies and greater priority given to dialogue between political leaders.
Former centre-right leader Luis Marques Mendes said there had never been an election night like this before: “I think we’ll have fresh elections early next year.”
It had all looked so much clearer when exit polls gave the centre right a clearer margin of victory. Supporters chanted “Portugal, Portugal” as their leader’s face appeared on TV screens. (Int’l News Desk)
