Two months after winning an absolute majority in early legislative elections, socialist António Costa took office, on the afternoon of this Wednesday (30), for his third term as prime minister of Portugal, a position he has held since November 2015.
Although the Socialist Party won 120 of the 230 seats in Parliament, enough to guarantee the approval of most of its projects without needing the support of the other parties, the prime minister said that this will be “a majority of parliamentary, political and social dialogue”. .
“The absolute majority granted to us does not mean absolute power. On the contrary, the absolute majority corresponds to an absolute responsibility for those who govern: the absence of alibis and excuses”, stressed Costa in his inaugural speech.
The prime minister also said that stability is not synonymous with immobility, and that ambition is needed to carry out important projects.
“We have an obligation to take advantage of stability to anticipate uncertainty,” he added.
In his speech at the inauguration ceremony of the new government, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, left a message for the prime minister about the additional responsibilities brought by the expressive majority in Parliament.
“They didn’t give him absolute power, nor majority dictatorship”, said the head of state, noting that “all dialogues of national interest fit”.
Rebelo de Sousa’s words are a kind of alert for the Executive, since one of the presidential prerogatives in the Portuguese system is the power to dismiss the prime minister, dissolve Parliament and call new elections.
Dubbed the “atomic bomb” in the country’s political life, the measure was used by the president in November. After the then Socialist minority government failed to pass the 2022 Budget, the head of state called for early elections to bring the country out of political impasse.
Faced with speculation that António Costa could leave the post of prime minister in 2024 – before the end of the legislature, in October 2026 – to take up a post in the European Union, the president made it clear that he would not accept that the Socialists nominate a replacement. .
“They gave a majority to a party, but also to a man,” said the head of state. “Now that you’ve won for four and a half years, I’m sure you know that this face that won can hardly be replaced by anyone else.”
There are precedents in Portuguese democracy that make the matter a matter of attention. In July 2004, the then Prime Minister José Manuel Durão Barroso resigned from his post to take up the post of President of the European Commission.
The current legislative agenda will not be long in gear. António Costa should present his government program to the deputies next Friday (1st).
The first session of the new composition of Parliament took place the day before the government took office, last Tuesday (29).
Elected president of the Assembly of the Republic, the socialist Augusto Santos Silva,
recently left the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, he said that he will exercise the new position – the second in the hierarchy of the State – in an “impartial, contained and unifying” way.
Without directly mentioning the name of the radical right party Chega, which elected 12 deputies and won the position of third largest party in Parliament, the former chancellor left a warning about what he will not tolerate among parliamentarians.
“The speech that has no place here will be hate speech, which insults the other who is different and who discriminates, whatever the reason for the discrimination,” he said.
The inauguration of the new government ended up happening five weeks later than expected. The delay was motivated by problems related to the votes of Portuguese residing abroad.
Voting among emigrants in European countries had to be redone. Although only two parliamentary seats were at stake — something insufficient to change the absolute majority of the PS —, the Assembly’s inauguration was only possible with all the results determined.
