AD wins legislative elections in Portugal – DW – 03/11/2024

The centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition won Election in Portugal this Sunday (03/10/2024). With a very close result against the Socialist Party (PS) and its leader Luis Montenegro, he will seek to form a government.

After more than eight years in power, there is no doubt that Portugal swung to the right in these elections Antonio CostaBut compared to the seats won in 2022, the majority of the votes went to the far-right Sega party.

With 99.01% of the votes counted, the PS won 28.63% of the vote compared to the AD which won 28.66% of the vote (77 seats), adding to the 0.86% achieved by the parties making up that coalition in Madeira. 79 seats.

Sega is third with 18.06% of the vote (48 seats), while the Liberal Initiative has 5.08% of the vote (8 seats).

Behind them is the Left Block with 4.46% of the vote and five seats; The coalition of Communists and Greens, CDU-PCP, with 3.30% of the vote and four seats; environmentalist Livre, 3.26% and 4 representatives; and Animals PAN, 1.93% and one seat.

Nothing is clear as the results are known, but the leader of the PS, Pedro Nuno Santos, came out and conceded victory to the AD, while saying he would lead the opposition.

“Despite the tangential difference between us and AD without underestimating the votes of the electoral circles of our communities (abroad), everything indicates that the result will not allow the PS to be the party with the most votes,” Santos said in his appearance. A hotel in Lisbon.

Despite conceding victory to AD, Santos reiterated that the PS would not support any resolution of rejection presented at the start of the new legislature against a minority AD government, as it was not in a position to present an alternative executive.

On the possibility of the PS presenting state budgets for 2025 with an AD government, he considered that scenario “practically impossible”.

“It's not worth creating pressure on the PS, we're going to lead the opposition, we're not going to support an AD government,” he pointed out.

After a while, Montenegro emerged with a serious face, perhaps aware of the task of governing as a minority.

Give high priority to dialogue and consultation

The AD leader said “he has well-founded expectations” that Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will ask him to form a government in the country and ruled out a deal with the far-right.

“I think the Portuguese said that political parties, especially those with parliamentary representation, should give a high priority to dialogue and consultation between leaders and parties,” Montenegro said.

He was blunt when asked by a journalist if he would sign a deal with Sega, and after reiterating during the election campaign that he had no intention of signing a deal with the far-right, he promised to keep his word.

10.8 million Portuguese were invited to vote in this Sunday's election, in which 230 parliamentary seats were renewed, with a higher turnout than previous elections, with a 66.23% turnout at polling stations.

Apart from the controversy held by the party with acronyms such as AD and the National Democratic Alternative (ADN), on the far right, it led some voters to get confused when it came to marking the ballot.

In fact, AD reported this confusion to the Portuguese National Electoral Commission upon receiving news that some voters who wanted to vote for them had voted for ADN because of the similarity of their names.

The Democratic Alliance was known during the campaign under the acronym AD, but on today's ballots its name is PPD/PSD.CDS-PP.PPM. appeared with the parties' acronyms, and the other force appeared as DNA.

The truth is that ADN got 100,044 votes, 1.63% of the votes, but could not win any seats.

mg (efe, general)