President to address nation after hearing Council of State

The president of Portugal will speak to the country on Thursday after listening to the Council of State, which is meeting from 3 p.m. at Belém Palace to discuss the possible dissolution of parliament.

The information was passed on to the Lusa news agency by an official source in the Presidency of the Republic.

The call for hearings with the parties and the Council of State was announced by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, on Tuesday, shortly after parliament rejected the motion of confidence that led to the resignation of the PSD/CDS-PP minority government.

The Council of State was convened by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa under Article 145(a) of the Constitution, according to which it is up to this body to pronounce on the dissolution of parliament.

On Wednesday, the head of state heard all the parties with parliamentary seats, who were unanimous in their opinion that the solution to the political crisis is to dissolve parliament and call snap elections, with the majority of parties preferring the date of 11 May and only BE, CDS-PP and PAN considering 18 May to be better (the two dates already publicly acknowledged by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in the event of elections).

On similar occasions, the president has also addressed the country from Belém Palace after completing the two steps required by the Constitution before dissolving parliament and calling elections: listening to the parties and the Council of State.

The current political crisis began in February with the publication of a story in Correio da Manhã about Luís Montenegro’s family business, Spinumviva. At the time, it was owned by his children and his wife — to whom he is married in the community of acquisitions — but last week, it was passed only to their children. This raised doubts about compliance with the regime of incompatibilities and impediments for public and political office holders.

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 announced on 5 March that he would present a motion of confidence in the government.

The text was rejected on Tuesday with the PS, Chega, BE, PCP, Livre and PAN’s sole MP, Inês Sousa Real, voting against. In favour were the PSD, CDS-PP and the Liberal Initiative.

According to the Constitution, failure to pass a motion of confidence means that the government resigns a year and a day after the AD coalition won the early parliamentary elections on 10 March.

The 24th Constitutional Government became the second government in the history of democracy to fall following the presentation of a motion of confidence, after the 1st Constitutional Government, led by socialist Mário Soares, in 1977.