Portugal: Cabinet meets Monday to discuss confidence motion

Portugal’s government has called a cabinet meeting for Monday, the day before the motion of confidence is to be debated in parliament. If rejected, it will dictate the government’s fall.

The cabinet meeting will begin at 10 a.m. and will be held at the prime minister’s official residence, the Palácio de São Bento, in Lisbon.

The meeting, chaired by Luís Montenegro, could be the government’s last in full office as next Tuesday parliament debates a motion of confidence presented by the minority PSD/CDS-PP government, which is expected to be defeated with the votes of the PS and Chega.

On Sunday, PSD leader Miguel Pinto Luz blamed the PS for a possible early election that neither the government nor the PSD wants. This came a day after the prime minister said that ‘there seems to be no alternative” to such a scenario.

Luís Montenegro said it was his responsibility ‘to prevent Portugal from becoming a country shrouded in mud”.

In response, PS leader Pedro Nuno Santos accused the prime minister of ‘being in the mud” into which he dragged the PSD and the government and now wants to drag the country as well, and warned that the right-wing government ‘can never have the confidence” of the Socialists.

If a vote of confidence is rejected, the government will resign. Faced with this scenario, the President of the Republic has already stated that 11 or 18 May is a possible date for holding early general elections as soon as possible.

The current political crisis began in February with the publication of an article by Correio da Manhã about Luís Montenegro’s family business, Spinumviva, which at the time was owned by his children and his wife, to whom he is married in community of acquisitions – and which passed this week only to their children – raising doubts about compliance with the regime of incompatibilities and impediments for holders of public and political office.

After more than two weeks of news – including Expresso’s report that Solverde was paying Spinumviva a monthly fee of €4,500 – two motions of censure against the government, by Chega and the PCP, both of which were rejected, and the PS’s announcement that it would present a commission of inquiry, the prime minister, Luís Montenegro, announced on 5 March that he would present a motion of confidence.