Luís Montenegro, the head of the Democratic Alliance (AD), has been appointed Prime Minister of Portugal.
Last week, on Wednesday night, the office of the Portuguese President of the Republic announced that, after the counting of the last two electoral circles, which would decide the last 4 seats at the Parliament, the Democratic Alliance coalition attained a relative majority (80 seats versus 78 from the Socialist Party).
Note that after the final counting, both AD and PS got one seat each. The other two available seats went to the right-wing political party CHEGA, which had already become the third biggest political power in the Parliament.
Given the results, the President of the Republic chose to invite Luis Montenegro, head of the Democratic Alliance and leader of the Social Democratic Party, to become the new prime minister of Portugal.
“Having the President of the Republic proceeded with the hearings of the political parties and coalitions of political parties that stood for the March 10 elections for the Assembly of the Republic and obtained mandates, with the Democratic Alliance winning the elections in terms of mandates and votes, and having the secretary general of the Socialist Party recognized and confirmed that he would be the leader of the Opposition, the President of the Republic decided to nominate Luís Montenegro as Prime Minister…”, reads the note published on the Presidency website.
Montenegro said yes, and considering that he was going to have a meeting with the President of the European Commission on Thursday morning, he requested the nomination to be communicated to the public by the Head of State on Wednesday night.
Even though it was already announced, Luís Montenegro will only take office on April 2. First, he must present, to the Head of State, his proposal for “the organics and the composition of the XXVI Constitutional Government”.
Only then, with a Government that has been approved by the President of the Republic, can he officially take the office of Prime Minister.
