“Parliamentary elections must take place as soon as possible” – PM

The leader of the PSD and prime minister said on Wednesday that the solution to the political crisis is to hold early parliamentary elections “as soon as possible”, saying that there are “all the conditions” for them to take place on 11 May.

Luís Montenegro was speaking after an audience with the president of Portugal at the Palace of Belém, where Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is receiving all the parties with parliamentary seats today. This follows the “rejection” of the motion of confidence presented by the government.

At the end of an hour-long meeting with the head of state, the prime minister said he had conveyed that “the solution to this impasse must be to hold early parliamentary elections, which must take place as soon as possible”.

“We shouldn’t anticipate the president’s decision, but by opening up the possibility of dissolving parliament and calling elections, we believe there are all the conditions for them to be held on one of these two dates, 11 or 18 May. But there are all the conditions for it to be the 11th”, he said of the electoral timetable.

Asked if he will say again, as he did in the last parliamentary elections, that he will only be prime minister if he wins, Montenegro replied: “If there’s any justice you can do me, it’s that I was very clear about the conditions I imposed on myself and my party to lead the Government in the last election campaign and, therefore, you don’t have to expect a different circumstance from me in the next campaign”.

When asked if he admits giving the PS the conditions to govern if it wins, as party leader Pedro Nuno Santos requested on Tuesday, he again referred to these scenarios for the future. “We will have the opportunity to contextualise the political projects that will be put to the vote, if that is the decision, as is expected, of the president, and on that occasion we will not shy away from giving all the answers”, he said.

Montenegro said that the post-election scenarios “will naturally be the subject of debate in the election campaign, so that the Portuguese people can be equipped with all the elements they need to consider their voting behaviour and to give their opinion on what they want for the future of the country, of governance”.

The prime minister argued that this is the time for the parties to give the president their analysis of the political situation, and on Thursday for the State Counsellors to also contribute. “If that position is, as is to be expected, the dissolution of parliament and the calling of elections, the next period will be the presentation of candidates, projects and the discussion of ideas with a view to the Portuguese taking a position. And that’s what we’ll concentrate on over the next few weeks”, he said.

Montenegro arrived in Belém at 10.57 a.m., accompanied by PSD vice-presidents Leonor Beleza and Inês Palma Ramalho and the vice-president of the parliamentary bench Alexandre Poço.

Throughout the day, the president will hear all the parties with seats in parliament and has called a meeting of the Council of State for Thursday at 3 p.m. under Article 145(a) of the Constitution, according to which it is up to this body to pronounce on the dissolution of parliament.

Article 133 of the Constitution also states that it is up to the president to dissolve parliament “after hearing the parties represented in it and the Council of State”.

The motion of confidence in the PSD/CDS-PP government failed, with votes against from the PS, Chega, BE, PCP, Livre, and the sole PAN MP, Inês Sousa Real. The PSD, CDS-PP, and Liberal Initiative voted in favour.