Portugal\u2019s ruling center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) won a snap parliamentary election on Sunday but again fell short of the majority needed to end a long period of instability as the far-right Chega gained a record share of the vote. <\/p>\n
Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said the election result was a vote of confidence in his party, but with votes from abroad still to be counted Chega could supplant the center-left Socialists as the main opposition party, ending almost 40 years of dominance by the country\u2019s two major parties. <\/p>\n
Continued political instability could delay structural reforms and major projects in Portugal, including lithium mining in the north, and potentially compromise the efficient deployment of EU funds and the long-delayed privatization of TAP airline. <\/p>\n
The election, the third in as many years, was called one year into an AD minority government\u2019s term after Montenegro failed to win a vote of confidence in March when the opposition questioned his integrity over dealings of his family\u2019s consultancy firm. He has denied any wrongdoing. <\/p>\n
Electoral data showed the AD making gains, winning 89 seats in the 230-seat parliament, nine more than in the previous election. <\/p>\n
Montenegro, who has ruled out any deal with Chega, said he expected to form a minority government. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Portuguese don\u2019t want any more snap elections, they want a four-year legislature,\u201d Montenegro said as his supporters chanted \u201cLet Luis work,\u201d his campaign slogan. <\/p>\n
Chega gained 8 seats for a total of 58, winning a record 22.6% of the vote, while voters appeared to punish the Socialists for their role in bringing down Montenegro\u2019s government. <\/p>\n
They fell to 58 seats from 78, prompting Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos to say he would step down. <\/p>\n
Chega leader Andre Ventura, who was hospitalized during the campaign after collapsing on stage with an esophageal spasm, said his party had \u201cswept the left block off the map in style.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are moments in life during which God says, just stop a little bit,\u201d he told a crowd of jubilant supporters. \u201cThis time I am not going to listen. I am not going to stop until I become the prime minister of Portugal.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Portugal\u2019s ruling center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) won a snap parliamentary election on Sunday but again fell short of the majority needed to end a long period of instability as the far-right Chega gained a record…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}