Portugal’s parliament elected conservative MP José Pedro Aguiar-Branco as its new president on Wednesday. Parliament announced that 160 of the 230 members of the “Assembleia da República” in Lisbon voted for the politician from the conservative alliance Democratic Alliance (AD). Four deputies from other parties were also elected. The election of Aguiar-Branco only became possible after the opposition socialist party PS gave up its opposition to the conservative.
In the first attempt the day before, Aguiar-Branco failed and only got 88 votes. The AD received the most votes in the early parliamentary elections on March 10th and narrowly trumped the Socialists, who have been in power for eight years, but clearly missed an absolute majority. The conservative alliance only has 80 seats. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa appointed AD boss Luís Montenegro as head of government last week. Montenegro wants to present its cabinet on Thursday. The new government is scheduled to officially take office on April 2nd.
The big winner of the election is André Ventura’s right-wing populist party Chega (Enough), which Montenegro and other critics classify as xenophobic and racist. It was able to more than quadruple the number of its mandates – from 12 to over 50 seats. However, Montenegro has ruled out cooperation with Chega. A “grand coalition” between conservatives and socialists is also considered impossible in Portugal due to irreconcilable differences.