2024-03-27 10:15:17
The center-right Democratic Union, which won the parliamentary elections in Portugal, entered into its first clash with the extreme right yesterday. He accused her of colluding with the Socialists to block the election of the Speaker of the Parliament, Reuters and BTA reported.
The coalition, led by center-right Social Democratic Party leader Luiz Montenegro, won parliamentary elections on March 10 by a narrow margin and as a result lacks a majority. The Democratic Union has just 80 of the 230 seats, so political analysts expected the instability of the minority government to make it dependent on the far-right Stiga (Portuguese: ШЀGA) party to push through laws, which quadrupled its MPs and brought in parliament 50 deputies.
Montenegro has repeatedly refused to agree with Stiga on a coalition government, something party leader Andre Ventura demanded to allow the Democratic Union to push its laws through parliament.
On Monday, Ventura surprisingly said his party had reached an agreement with the Democratic Union to elect Social Democrat Pedro Aguiar Branco as speaker of parliament. But in the vote at yesterday’s first session of parliament, Aguiar Branco’s name was rejected as he only got 89 votes in favor and failed to reach the required majority of 116 MPs, meaning the Stiga MPs did not fulfill the agreement .
“We have seen the first harmful coalition between the Socialist Party and Stiga,” said Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, leader of the Social Democrats’ parliamentary group.
Socialist parliamentary leader Euriko Brillanti Dias rejected the claim. “The agreement between the two right-wing parties did not work. It was broken after less than 24 hours,” said Brilanti Dias.
Ventura denied instructing his lawmakers to vote against Aguiar Branco and accused several top figures in the Democratic Union of reneging on the deal.