Rebelo de Sousa calls early elections in Portugal for March 10, 2024

Costa will be formally removed at the beginning of December in order to approve the budgets before the proposal expires

At the meeting of the Council of State, Costa proposed the governor of the Bank of Portugal, Mário Centeno, as a substitute

The president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, announced this Thursday that he is dissolving the Assembly and calling early elections for March 10, 2024, after the political crisis arising from the resignation of António Costa as prime minister, in the midst of a corruption scandal affecting his Government.

"I have opted for the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic and setting elections for March 10, 2024," Rebelo de Sousa announced when leaving a meeting of the Council of State that lasted almost four hours.

During his speech, Rebelo de Sousa, who thanked Costa for the "high gesture" he had in presenting his resignation so quickly, pointed out that the socialists' proposal to maintain the current government with a new interim prime minister was not the best solution to resolve this political crisis.

Thus, he explained that this option would mean putting in charge "another prime minister not politically and personally legitimized by the popular vote", there being also "the risk that this weakness will translate into a mere postponement of the dissolution until a worse time, with a more critical and unpredictable situation.

"That is the form of democracy, not to be afraid of the people," he said, clarifying that Costa will not be formally dismissed until early December, in order to be able to approve, before the project expires, the general budgets for 2024, in pursuit of "the indispensable economic and social stability" of the country.

Rebelo de Sousa has indicated that he has tried to "shorten as much as possible" the date to schedule the call for new elections, but this has not been possible partly because the Socialist Party needs time to elect a new leadership.

The first from the Socialist Party (PS) to react to this announcement was the Minister of the Interior, José Luís Carneiro, who stressed that they now have "the duty to constitute a voice of stability, trust and credibility." He is one of those most likely to replace Costa along with deputy Pedro Nuno Santos.

Subsequently, Costa said that at the beginning of the Council of State meeting he proposed the governor of the Bank of Portugal, Mário Centeno, as a substitute to finish the legislature. "He has all the qualities to do it," he said.

In turn, he has refuted Rebelo de Sousa's "interpretation" of the result of the last March 2022 elections, considering that the absolute majority achieved was linked exclusively to the figure of the prime minister.

"Of course the leader of the PS contributed to the electoral result", but "António Costa's face did not appear in the PS bulletin", unlike, he recalled, the electoral process in which the head of state is elected. However, he trusts the members of the party to be able to choose who will replace him.

REACTIONS

Finally, Rebelo de Sousa has opted for the option that had been most popular these days and which the leaders of the parties with parliamentary representation advocated during the meeting he held with them this Wednesday.

The main opposition force, the Party of Social Democracy (PSD), has reacted by calling the president's decision "inevitable." Its leader, Luís Montenegro, has indicated that this is the way to restore the "prestige" of the institutions, after the latest events that occurred.

Regarding the decision to carry out the 2024 budgets before calling elections, Montenegro has pointed out that although the PSD has a "fundamental disagreement" with the socialist proposal, it understands the president's decision to maintain it. "Better a bad one than none," he said.

The Left Bloc (BE) has indicated that although they would have preferred an earlier call, they understand this date, although they regret the decision to have to vote on these budgets, which do not respond to the real needs of the Portuguese, said the parliamentary spokesperson by BE, Pedro Filipe Soares.

Along these lines, although the communist deputy Paula Santos has been more critical, for whom the elections "should be held sooner" and criticizes that they have been delayed due to budgets that "do not respond" to the interests of the workers.

For his part, the leader of the liberals, Rui Rocha, has also regretted that this is the budget that has to be voted on before Costa's departure. There is "no enthusiasm whatsoever for the decision for this budget to come into effect (...) Some positive things it may have are outweighed by the many negative things it has," he has protested.

Rocha has reproached the socialists for the date of these new elections, as he believes that "perfectly" they could have accelerated the election of their new leader. "Once again the urgency of change and transformation is burdened by the inability of the PS to accelerate its decisions," he criticized.

On Tuesday, the Prosecutor's Office searched the headquarters of the Ministries of Infrastructure and the Environment, as well as some of the offices of Costa's official residence for alleged irregularities in the granting of public contracts for the exploitation of lithium deposits and the production of clean energy. with hydrogen.