Portugal’s new divided parliament faced a problem on its first session on Tuesday as it couldn't pick a president.
The party of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, which barely won elections recently, didn't get the 116 votes needed to elect their candidate Jose Pedro Aguiar-Branco as president.
Even though Montenegro’s party is the largest in parliament, it can't get a majority without the far-right Chega party’s support – which the new premier has rejected.
Even though Chega’s leader Andre Ventura said on Monday that the party would vote for Aguiar-Branco, the results showed that many of their 50 MPs did not do so.
Ventura pointed fingers at members of Montenegro’s Democratic Alliance (AD) for publicly going back on an agreement between the two parties that would have secured Chega’s support.
As a result, the AD withdrew Aguiar-Branco’s candidacy.
Despite steadfastly refusing to form a coalition with Chega, Montenegro has promised to form a minority government.
Ventura has claimed responsibility for any political instability, but Montenegro insisted after he was sworn in that there was “no internal or external reason to doubt our ability to have a stable government.”
PUNCH Online earlier reported that Montenegro was appointed prime minister of Portugal but would have to form a coalition government and grapple with a growing far-right after his party’s narrow victory in parliamentary elections.
The 51-year-old lawyer and veteran parliamentarian took over from the Socialist Party’s Antonio Costa, who had been in power since 2015.
AFP
