Latest news with #Spinumviva
Irish Times
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Far right challenges traditional parties
Portugal 's conservative prime minister Luís Montenegro strengthened his position in Sunday's general election, although the composition and stability of the next government remain uncertain after the far-right Chega broke the hegemony of the established parties. Montenegro's Democratic Alliance (AD) centre-right coalition had 89 seats in the 230-seat parliament, with overseas votes yet to be counted, nine more than in the 2024 election when he took power. The result, which meant parties on the left suffered heavy losses, appears to mean the acting prime minister can leave behind a conflict-of-interest scandal which had triggered the election after Montenegro's government collapsed in March. 'People want this government and they don't want any other,' Montenegro said. 'People want this prime minister and not any other.' The opposition had denounced Montenegro's ties to a company, Spinumviva, which has benefited from contracts awarded by the government, making the election in part a referendum on the prime minister's handling of the affair. READ MORE 'Who will keep talking about Spinumviva after this result?' asked political columnist Pedro Tadeu of Diário de Notícias newspaper. 'Nobody'. However, Montenegro's AD remains a minority force in parliament and vulnerable to the instability which has hit the country's politics in recent years. Supporters of far-right party Chega celebrate at their headquarters in Lisbon. Photograph: Andre Dias Nobre/AFP via Getty Images The shock of the election was provided by Chega, which, with votes still to be counted, was tied with the Socialist Party on 58 seats. Chega, which was only formed in 2019, had already become the third force in parliament and this result raises the prospect of it either being the main party of opposition or even of entering government. Chega leader André Ventura hogged the media spotlight for much of the campaign, during which he engaged in public arguments with members of the Romani community and advocated a severe clampdown on immigration. He was hospitalised towards the end of the campaign, due to a gastric complaint, ensuring he was talked about until election day. 'Nothing will be the same in Portugal from today,' Ventura said, as he acknowledged the result, which he dedicated to 'those who have felt humiliated during these 50 years of the [democratic] regime'. While immigration, which has increased substantially in recent years, was a significant theme of the campaign, so too was housing, the cost of which has risen sharply in Portugal as wages have failed to keep up. The Socialist Party was the big loser of the ballot, shedding 20 seats. Along with the conservatives, it had been a dominant force since the transition from dictatorship to democracy in 1974. As recently as 2022, it won an absolute majority under then-prime minister António Costa. However, his successor as party leader, Pedro Nuno Santos, stepped down on Sunday after the scale of the defeat became apparent. He cited 'tough and difficult times for the left and for the Socialist Party', for which this was the worst result since 1987. The Socialists governed between 2015 and 2023, with the support of other parties on the left, including the Communist Party and Leftist bloc. Both of those lost ground, although the relatively new left-wing Livre party gained seats. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will start meeting party leaders on Tuesday before inviting one of them to form a government. All eyes are now on whether Montenegro attempts to govern alone or alongside another party. The centre-right Liberal Initiative (ID) was seen as a potential partner for the AD, but its nine seats would still leave Montenegro far off the 116 needed to form a majority. In the past, he has ruled out the possibility of governing with Chega and his acting foreign minister, Paulo Rangel, has reiterated that stance in the wake of the election.
Al Jazeera
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
‘New paradigm': A fractured Portugal votes again, amid corruption cloud
Lisbon, Portugal — Portugal is summoning its citizens to vote in their third general elections in three years on May 18, amid rapid shifts to the country's political landscape that have left the country facing the prospect of yet another fractured mandate after decades of relative stability. This year's snap election comes at a moment when rising living costs, a housing crisis, the future of the national health service and perceptions of immigration are all significant issues on the public agenda – as is a corruption scandal that precipitated the upcoming vote. The government of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), fell in March, when parliament voted against a motion of confidence, triggering elections. It's the second Portuguese government in a row that had left office under a cloud of corruption allegations. Now, the country's 10 million voters will need to choose the makeup of their next parliament, where 230 seats are up for grabs – and a divided mandate appears likely. Montenegro led a right-wing minority government for less than a year before accusations of corruption emerged over a consultancy firm that he set up, called 'Spinumviva'. A string of media investigations into potential conflicts of interest revealed the firm had received thousands of euros a month in consultancy fees from previously undisclosed clients, including companies with government contracts. When a defiant Montenegro appeared on national television back in March to issue his response, he insisted that he had not broken the law because he had transferred his shares in the company to his wife and sons before he became prime minister in 2024. But his defence is controversial, say experts. 'Under Portuguese civil law, even if it was possible to sell shares to someone you're married to, you'd still be a joint owner of them, and, therefore, still able to profit from them,' said Portuguese lawyer and political commentator Carmo Afonso. 'Spinumviva is a very serious case – and revelations are still emerging.' Just hours before a live debate a few weeks later with his main rival, the Socialist Party's Pedro Nuno Santos, Montenegro submitted an updated declaration of his business interests to the national online transparency portal. According to an investigation by the Portuguese newspaper Expresso, some of Spinumviva's clients earned at least 100 million euros ($112m) a year in government contracts during Montenegro's mandate alone. Montenegro, meanwhile, says that he has not been involved with Spinumviva since becoming prime minister in March 2024. Still, the attention on Spinumviva may not have damaged Montenegro's chances of re-election. According to Portuguese political scientist Vicente Valentim, 'perceptions of corruption in Portugal are traditionally high, but it may not to be a significant factor in how people vote'. Despite the ongoing scandal, the conservative Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition, in which Montenegro's Social Democratic Party (PSD) is the majority party, leads the race, and is polling at 34 percent. And according to a poll by Lisbon's Catholic University, a third of voters think the Spinumviva case and its potential legal ramifications are irrelevant to the elections. Montenegro's brief period in government has seen him enjoy the support of the professional class, riding on a budget surplus attained by the previous government of the centrist Socialist Party (PS) of Antonio Costa, who was prime minister from 2015-2024. Meanwhile, 'the loss of the charismatic Antonio Costa has affected the PS's popularity,' says Afonso. 'Costa is a hard act to follow.' 'Ironically, the more Spinumviva gets talked about, the better it is for Montenegro, is what some commentators are saying,' says Afonso, who believes Montenegro was well aware of this when the government collapsed. 'Montenegro chose to bring a vote of confidence in parliament knowing full well that he would lose it, because there really couldn't be a better time to hold elections – better for him, that is.' The PS, by contrast, is polling several points below the AD at about 26 percent. Currently, it looks highly improbable that any of the parties or alliances running will win an outright majority of 116 seats or more. That leaves two likely possibilities: either a post-electoral coalition of parties that forms a majority in alliance; or a minority government, which needs the tacit support of other parties in parliament to push through essential legislation, including budgets. About half a dozen parties are serious contenders for the rest of the 230 seats in parliament. These include the traditional players such as the Communist Party-Greens alliance (CDU), the Left Bloc, and the People-Animals-Nature party, as well as new parties including the Europeanist-Socialist party Livre ('Free'), the radical right-wing Iniciativa Liberal ('Liberal Initiative'), and the extreme right Chega ('Enough'). Chega, which opposes immigration, abortion, and LGBTQ rights, and has targeted minorities like Portugal's substantial Romani population, won a surprising 50 parliamentary seats in the 2024 elections, with Andre Ventura as leader. It won 18 percent of the national vote. The party is currently in third position in the polls and is predicted to win close to what it did in the last elections. Valentim, the political scientist, warns against interpreting Chega's support base as representing a protest vote. 'A lot of people who vote for them already held the ideas they espoused, long before the party actually appeared; generally, the rapid growth of radical right-wing parties is not down to them changing people's ideas,' he said. 'So, Chega going from 1 percent of votes, to 7 percent, to 18 percent over the course of the last three elections doesn't mean that the number of people with right-wing ideas has grown in those proportions.' What it means, he said, is that 'more and more people who already had those ideas, but used to feel that they were not socially acceptable, and that they would be judged, or made social pariahs or disadvantaged professionally because of them, no longer feel that'. With the campaign period now well under way, Chega has been appealing to potential voters who might normally abstain. While polls suggest the party might not make major gains compared with the 2024 election, Valentim said he believes it's here to stay. 'Portugal was previously the exception in the European landscape, because no far-right party had had any notable success there; that's no longer the case,' he said. 'We can be fairly certain in saying that Chega is not going to just disappear, as suddenly as it appeared. The political landscape has changed, definitively.' And that has a range of consequences, he said. 'Citizens and politicians feeling at greater ease to express extreme right-wing ideas in public,' he said. There's 'greater polarisation around specific issues such as immigration and minority rights, and, of course, the dilemma of how the more traditional centre right deals with the far right'. Under Montenegro, the PSD has maintained it will not cut a deal with Chega. However, its options for forming a government are limited. According to Valentim, centre-right parties often try to overcome the popularity of new radical right parties by shifting further right themselves – including, at times, by forming partnerships with them. That rarely actually works for the centre right, he said. 'Power-sharing agreements with the extreme right legitimise those parties, without actually bring any long-term gains for the centre right,' he said. 'Studies have shown that the rapprochement of the centre right to the far right neither takes votes away from the far right, nor does it bring more votes back to the centre right. But it does result in a normalising of extreme right discourse, turning extreme right-wing ideas like xenophobia more acceptable.' This effect was visible even before election campaigning began on the issue of immigration, which Portugal has actively encouraged in recent years. Almost a quarter of Portuguese companies now employ foreign workers, according to the Bank of Portugal. According to a study by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation in December, the number of immigrants in Portugal tripled between 2015 and 2023. However, right-wing parties have also stirred a backlash against immigration, and in particular the presence of agricultural and shop workers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The FMS Foundation report showed that negative perceptions of migrants outweighed positive ones considerably – with 67 percent of the people they polled responding that they thought the presence of foreigners was associated with an increase in crime. Last year, Chega brought a motion to parliament for a national referendum on immigration but was voted down. Earlier this month, Montenegro's government notified 4,500 migrants that they would have to leave the country within 20 days. Following the permanent closure of the border agency SEF in 2024, the government cancelled a scheme that allowed migrants originating from outside the European Union to apply for residency once already working in the country. Some of those facing deportation have been waiting several years for a reply on their applications, and thousands more such notices are expected in the coming months. These policies sit in contrast with Portugal's demographic situation, with a falling birthrate, an ageing population and a declining fertility rate. In addition, it suffers from an ongoing trend of youth emigration – about 30 percent of the population between 15 and 39 is living abroad, one of the highest rates in the world. A study from Porto University in December 2024 said that Portugal would need to ensure 138,000 immigrants arriving per year to guarantee economic growth over the next decade. Meanwhile, a housing crisis is the biggest ongoing issue in Portugal in the run-up to the elections. House prices rose by 106 percent between 2015 and 2023, according to the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, compared with 48 percent in Spain and 8 percent in Italy. The increase in property value has been caused by deregulation, large influxes of foreign investment in properties, speculation on real estate and a tourism boom. As a result, young people and professionals are increasingly unable to afford housing in cities like Lisbon and Porto, where soaring rents have also prompted the closures of small businesses, and left low-income tenants stretched to pay rents or facing eviction. Rising housing prices have also contributed to a general increase in the cost of living, with energy and food prices rising. Factors such as the war in Ukraine – because of its effect on the global supply chain – have amplified this crisis. As of Thursday night, almost 20 percent of voters were undecided, meaning a range of outcomes is possible after the Sunday vote: An AD-led minority government, a less likely PS-led minority government, or a coalition between a variety of political players. If that happens, it would be the second time a row that Portugal will not have a majority government: The AD won 80 seats in 2024 out of 230, just ahead of the PS, which won 78. To Valentin, this is no longer an anomaly – he expects this scenario to be repeated in future elections, too. 'Portuguese democracy went through a very long period of relative stability,' he said, reflecting on the fact that Portugal this year celebrated 50 years since its first fully free elections, following the overthrow of the Estado Novo dictatorship. 'For decades it had a multiparty system that barely changed, with governments alternating between the centre left PS and centre right PSD, and some interventions by a small number of other parties.' 'But now there's been a lot of changes in a short period of time, with more and more new parties having made it into parliament,' he added. That has meant fewer votes for the mainstream centrist parties, the PS and the PSD, as newer parties like Chega eat into their traditional base. 'We're now entering a new paradigm,' said Valentin. 'And it remains to be seen how these different political forces will balance out.'
Al Jazeera
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
‘New paradigm': A fractured Portugal votes, again, amid corruption cloud
Lisbon, Portugal — Portugal is summoning its citizens to vote in their third general elections in three years on May 18, amid rapid shifts to the country's political landscape that have left the country facing the prospect of yet another fractured mandate after decades of relative stability. This year's snap election comes at a moment when rising living costs, a housing crisis, the future of the national health service and perceptions of immigration are all significant issues on the public agenda – as is a corruption scandal that precipitated the upcoming vote. The government of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), fell in March, when parliament voted against a motion of confidence, triggering elections. It's the second Portuguese government in a row that had left office under a cloud of corruption allegations. Now, the country's 10 million voters will need to choose the makeup of their next parliament, where 230 seats are up for grabs – and a divided mandate appears likely. Montenegro led a right-wing minority government for less than a year before accusations of corruption emerged over a consultancy firm that he set up, called 'Spinumviva'. A string of media investigations into potential conflicts of interest revealed the firm had received thousands of euros a month in consultancy fees from previously undisclosed clients, including companies with government contracts. When a defiant Montenegro appeared on national television back in March to issue his response, he insisted that he had not broken the law because he had transferred his shares in the company to his wife and sons before he became prime minister in 2024. But his defence is controversial, say experts. 'Under Portuguese civil law, even if it was possible to sell shares to someone you're married to, you'd still be a joint owner of them, and, therefore, still able to profit from them,' said Portuguese lawyer and political commentator Carmo Afonso. 'Spinumviva is a very serious case – and revelations are still emerging.' Just hours before a live debate a few weeks later with his main rival, the Socialist Party's Pedro Nuno Santos, Montenegro submitted an updated declaration of his business interests to the national online transparency portal. According to an investigation by the Portuguese newspaper Expresso, some of Spinumviva's clients earned at least 100 million euros ($112m) a year in government contracts during Montenegro's mandate alone. Montenegro, meanwhile, says that he has not been involved with Spinumviva since becoming prime minister in March 2024. Still, the attention on Spinumviva may not have damaged Montenegro's chances of re-election. According to Portuguese political scientist Vicente Valentim, 'perceptions of corruption in Portugal are traditionally high, but it may not to be a significant factor in how people vote'. Despite the ongoing scandal, the conservative Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition, in which Montenegro's Social Democratic Party (PSD) is the majority party, leads the race, and is polling at 34 percent. And according to a poll by Lisbon's Catholic University, a third of voters think the Spinumviva case and its potential legal ramifications are irrelevant to the elections. Montenegro's brief period in government has seen him enjoy the support of the professional class, riding on a budget surplus attained by the previous government of the centrist Socialist Party (PS) of Antonio Costa, who was prime minister from 2015-2024. Meanwhile, 'the loss of the charismatic Antonio Costa has affected the PS's popularity,' says Afonso. 'Costa is a hard act to follow.' 'Ironically, the more Spinumviva gets talked about, the better it is for Montenegro, is what some commentators are saying,' says Afonso, who believes Montenegro was well aware of this when the government collapsed. 'Montenegro chose to bring a vote of confidence in parliament knowing full well that he would lose it, because there really couldn't be a better time to hold elections – better for him, that is.' The PS, by contrast, is polling several points below the AD at about 26 percent. Currently, it looks highly improbable that any of the parties or alliances running will win an outright majority of 116 seats or more. That leaves two likely possibilities: either a post-electoral coalition of parties that forms a majority in alliance; or a minority government, which needs the tacit support of other parties in parliament to push through essential legislation, including budgets. About half a dozen parties are serious contenders for the rest of the 230 seats in parliament. These include the traditional players such as the Communist Party-Greens alliance (CDU), the Left Bloc, and the People-Animals-Nature party, as well as new parties including the Europeanist-Socialist party Livre ('Free'), the radical right-wing Iniciativa Liberal ('Liberal Initiative'), and the extreme right Chega ('Enough'). Chega, which opposes immigration, abortion, and LGBTQ rights, and has targeted minorities like Portugal's substantial Romani population, won a surprising 50 parliamentary seats in the 2024 elections, with Andre Ventura as leader. It won 18 percent of the national vote. The party is currently in third position in the polls and is predicted to win close to what it did in the last elections. Valentim, the political scientist, warns against interpreting Chega's support base as representing a protest vote. 'A lot of people who vote for them already held the ideas they espoused, long before the party actually appeared; generally, the rapid growth of radical right-wing parties is not down to them changing people's ideas,' he said. 'So, Chega going from 1 percent of votes, to 7 percent, to 18 percent over the course of the last three elections doesn't mean that the number of people with right-wing ideas has grown in those proportions.' What it means, he said, is that 'more and more people who already had those ideas, but used to feel that they were not socially acceptable, and that they would be judged, or made social pariahs or disadvantaged professionally because of them, no longer feel that'. With the campaign period now well under way, Chega has been appealing to potential voters who might normally abstain. While polls suggest the party might not make major gains compared with the 2024 election, Valentim said he believes it's here to stay. 'Portugal was previously the exception in the European landscape, because no far-right party had had any notable success there; that's no longer the case,' he said. 'We can be fairly certain in saying that Chega is not going to just disappear, as suddenly as it appeared. The political landscape has changed, definitively.' And that has a range of consequences, he said. 'Citizens and politicians feeling at greater ease to express extreme right-wing ideas in public,' he said. There's 'greater polarisation around specific issues such as immigration and minority rights, and, of course, the dilemma of how the more traditional centre right deals with the far right'. Under Montenegro, the PSD has maintained it will not cut a deal with Chega. However, its options for forming a government are limited. According to Valentim, centre-right parties often try to overcome the popularity of new radical right parties by shifting further right themselves – including, at times, by forming partnerships with them. That rarely actually works for the centre right, he said. 'Power-sharing agreements with the extreme right legitimise those parties, without actually bring any long-term gains for the centre right,' he said. 'Studies have shown that the rapprochement of the centre right to the far right neither takes votes away from the far right, nor does it bring more votes back to the centre right. But it does result in a normalising of extreme right discourse, turning extreme right-wing ideas like xenophobia more acceptable.' This effect was visible even before election campaigning began on the issue of immigration, which Portugal has actively encouraged in recent years. Almost a quarter of Portuguese companies now employ foreign workers, according to the Bank of Portugal. According to a study by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation in December, the number of immigrants in Portugal tripled between 2015 and 2023. However, right-wing parties have also stirred a backlash against immigration, and in particular the presence of agricultural and shop workers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The FMS Foundation report showed that negative perceptions of migrants outweighed positive ones considerably – with 67 percent of the people they polled responding that they thought the presence of foreigners was associated with an increase in crime. Last year, Chega brought a motion to parliament for a national referendum on immigration but was voted down. Earlier this month, Montenegro's government notified 4,500 migrants that they would have to leave the country within 20 days. Following the permanent closure of the border agency SEF in 2024, the government cancelled a scheme that allowed migrants originating from outside the European Union to apply for residency once already working in the country. Some of those facing deportation have been waiting several years for a reply on their applications, and thousands more such notices are expected in the coming months. These policies sit in contrast with Portugal's demographic situation, with a falling birthrate, an ageing population and a declining fertility rate. In addition, it suffers from an ongoing trend of youth emigration – about 30 percent of the population between 15 and 39 is living abroad, one of the highest rates in the world. A study from Porto University in December 2024 said that Portugal would need to ensure 138,000 immigrants arriving per year to guarantee economic growth over the next decade. Meanwhile, a housing crisis is the biggest ongoing issue in Portugal in the run-up to the elections. House prices rose by 106 percent between 2015 and 2023, according to the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, compared with 48 percent in Spain and 8 percent in Italy. The increase in property value has been caused by deregulation, large influxes of foreign investment in properties, speculation on real estate and a tourism boom. As a result, young people and professionals are increasingly unable to afford housing in cities like Lisbon and Porto, where soaring rents have also prompted the closures of small businesses, and left low-income tenants stretched to pay rents or facing eviction. Rising housing prices have also contributed to a general increase in the cost of living, with energy and food prices rising. Factors such as the war in Ukraine – because of its effect on the global supply chain – have amplified this crisis. As of Thursday night, almost 20 percent of voters were undecided, meaning a range of outcomes is possible after the Sunday vote: An AD-led minority government, a less likely PS-led minority government, or a coalition between a variety of political players. If that happens, it would be the second time a row that Portugal will not have a majority government: The AD won 80 seats in 2024 out of 230, just ahead of the PS, which won 78. To Valentin, this is no longer an anomaly – he expects this scenario to be repeated in future elections, too. 'Portuguese democracy went through a very long period of relative stability,' he said, reflecting on the fact that Portugal this year celebrated 50 years since its first fully free elections, following the overthrow of the Estado Novo dictatorship. 'For decades it had a multiparty system that barely changed, with governments alternating between the centre left PS and centre right PSD, and some interventions by a small number of other parties.' 'But now there's been a lot of changes in a short period of time, with more and more new parties having made it into parliament,' he added. That has meant fewer votes for the mainstream centrist parties, the PS and the PSD, as newer parties like Chega eat into their traditional base. 'We're now entering a new paradigm,' said Valentin. 'And it remains to be seen how these different political forces will balance out.'
Euronews
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Record numbers of registered voters for legislative elections
More than 333,000 registered voters in Portugal will be able to vote this Sunday in advance for the legislative elections on 18 May. This is a record number since mobile voting was implemented in Portugal, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Mobile voting allows voters to cast their ballot in advance and at the polling station that is most convenient for them, as long as they had marked the place where they wanted to vote when they registered. In the last elections, in 2024, 208,000 voters voted in advance and abroad, including Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. In fact, the president is due to vote early again Sunday. Around 10 million voters living in Portugal and abroad are registered to vote in these elections, which were brought forward after the fall of the centre-right minority government. In March, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro had a motion of confidence rejected in parliament following a case involving himself and a company owned by his family, Spinumviva. The case raised doubts about whether public officials followed rules on conflicts of interest. In light of the controversy, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa dissolved the coalition government led by Montenegro. At a time when the electoral campaign is about to enter its final week, 21 parties are running in these early elections, including coalitions. According to a poll carried out for Euronews, Luís Montenegro's AD (PSD/CDS) coalition is in the lead with 34.1 per cent of voting intentions. The Socialist Party, led by Pedro Nuno Santos, would have 27.1 per cent, and the far-right populist Chega party would maintain its position as the third most popular party with 15.2 per cent. The Liberal Initiative would have 8.3 per cent. These numbers refer to a Consulmark2 poll for Nascer do SOL and Euronews, carried out between 14 and 22 April. A dangerous toxic cloud formed following a fire at a swimming pool chemicals factory in Vilanova i la Geltrú has caused six towns in Catalonia to be placed under lockdown on Saturday, according to Spanish authorities. The blaze erupted at around 2:20 am on Saturday at Clim Waterpool, a company specialising in cleaning products for swimming pools. The affected site, located at 18 Rambla dels Països Catalans in Vilanova i la Geltrú, contained approximately 70 tonnes of chlorine, a highly toxic substance when it burns. Catalonia's Civil Protection activated its chemical risk plan, PLASEQCAT, and sent emergency alerts to residents' mobile phones in the affected areas. Lockdown orders were lifted by Saturday afternoon. However, people from vulnerable groups were still advised to stay inside for the moment. The towns affected were Vilanova i la Geltrú (Barcelona), Sant Pere de Ribes (Barcelona), Cubelles (Barcelona), Cunit (Tarragona), Calafell (Tarragona) and the centre of Roquetes. Authorities had instructed residents to stay indoors, keep doors and windows closed, and not to use air-conditioning devices that can filter contaminated outdoor air. Firefighters from Catalonia report that the blaze is now in the stabilisation phase, with efforts successfully preventing its spread to nearby industrial buildings. Civil Protection has confirmed that no injuries were reported on Saturday, as the wind directed the toxic cloud towards the sea, minimising the threat to densely populated areas. Vilanova i la Geltrú town council warned on its social media that activities at the "La Fira Conte Va" festival, outdoor sports activities, libraries, the central market and the fish market have been cancelled. Sixty firefighters were deployed to the area with teams specialised in chemical risks constantly assessing the situation. The Medical Emergency System (SEM) has sent three units that remain on alert. Local Police are ensuring civilians comply with confinement orders. Civil Protection, operating from its coordination centre (CECAT), has been in continuous contact with town councils and local police of all affected municipalities to ensure a coordinated response. Health authorities have advised anyone experiencing symptoms such as eye irritation, breathing difficulties, or general discomfort to seek immediate medical assistance.
Saudi Gazette
12-03-2025
- Business
- Saudi Gazette
Portugal's parliament rejects confidence motion, brings down government
LISBON — The government of Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro has lost a vote of confidence, almost certainly pitching the country into its third general election in barely three years. MPs voted against him by 142 to 88 with no abstentions, toppling his right-of-center minority government. While Portugal's President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, is not obliged to dissolve the assembly, he had made clear that he would if the government lost Tuesday's vote, with fresh elections likely in May. The confidence motion was tabled by the government itself, after the opposition Socialists announced plans for a parliamentary inquiry into Montenegro's business dealings. A company called Spinumviva, set up by Luís Montenegro, continued to receive sizeable sums from clients he had previously secured, even after he was elected Social Democratic Party (PSD) president and leader of the opposition in 2022, and had transferred ownership to his wife and two sons. The legality of the transfer to his wife was questioned by the opposition, given that the marriage is one in which assets are jointly held; the couple have since made their sons sole owners. But questions remain about the sources of the company's income – which until a few days ago included €4,500 (£3,800) a month from hotels and casino group Solverde, whose gambling concession is up for review – as well as the identity of other clients, which the prime minister has declined to reveal, and the services Spinumviva offers. The prime minister, a trained lawyer, says the firm provides consultancy services relating to data privacy laws, outsourcing work to external experts – given that his wife is a childminder, one son a student and the other a new graduate. The Bar Association is now looking into whether the company is illicitly offering services that only lawyers may offer. In recent days, Montenegro's cabinet has approved a battery of spending and other measures, in what is being seen as a bid to show that it is working hard for the country. The situation might seem to offer ideal conditions for far-right Chega, the third-largest party in parliament, to renew its attacks on corruption in politics. Chega also benefited from the resignation of Montenegro's Socialist predecessor, António Costa, who is now president of the European Council. His name had come up in a criminal investigation into government contracts, although he has never been made a suspect. But in recent weeks, Chega has been hit by scandals of its own, with three of its MPs accused of crimes, including one charged with stealing suitcases at Lisbon airport. Until recently, Luís Montenegro's coalition with the conservative People's Party was still ahead of the Socialists in the opinion polls, having narrowly won the 2024 general election a year ago. However, they are now trailing the Socialists, led by Pedro Nuno Santos, who served as a minister under António Costa. None of the major parties appear keen on a snap election – not least because they fear voters will not be enthusiastic at having to choose a new government when the current one has been in office for less than a year – and the timing is poor in geopolitical terms. However, Portugal appears set on an unswerving path for May elections. Not only has the prime minister chosen to appeal to voters rather than face an inquiry, a stance described as "cowardly" by the leader of the opposition. But Pedro Nuno Santos has long pledged not to vote in favor of any government confidence motion. — BBC
