The right-wing Chega party, the third largest political group in Portugal, presented this Friday (15) a motion of censure against the government of Prime Minister António Costa, which appears to be doomed to failure due to the absolute majority of socialists and the leader of the conservative opposition, which will also not support the measure.
Chega’s document, which has 12 of the 230 seats in the Chamber, was delivered to the Assembly of the Republic at the beginning of the legislative year and will be debated and voted on next Tuesday, the 19th. If the motion is approved, the current government will be dismissed .
“We consider this the worst government in history”, declared the party leader, André Ventura, to journalists after the handover, in which he harshly criticized the decision of the largest opposition party, the PSD (center-right), to abstain.
Ventura accused the PSD of “lukewarmness” and “weakness” and stated that this was the time to show that there is a united right as an alternative to the socialist government.
“If we don’t understand each other in terms of thinking that this is the time for the end of the government, how are we going to understand each other in politics about what we want for the new government?”, he asked.
The president of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, told journalists on Thursday that his party would abstain from the vote, which, in his opinion, “is useless”.
The other right-wing party, Liberal Initiative, announced that it will vote in favor, despite considering that it is “a distraction maneuver” that will give “a stage to the Socialist Party”, according to the Lusa agency. The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) announced its vote against.
Party points to “asphyxiating” financial situation and scandals
In the document delivered to Parliament, to which EFE had access, Chega accuses the government of being “largely responsible for the breakdown of citizens’ trust, the political-institutional conflict with the President of the Republic and the degeneration of the internal economic climate” .
In twelve pages and with a defense divided into five points, the document denounces the government’s lack of action in the face of an “increasingly suffocating financial situation” for the Portuguese, the “scandals and suspicions” that involved members of the socialist cabinet and the lack of measures in sectors such as health, education, justice and housing.
Furthermore, it highlights “the lack of quality of healthcare provided” in the National Health Service, which is “increasingly worse”, and emergency services “in crisis” due to lack of resources and professionals, as well as “the successive unfulfilled promises in terms of housing”, worsened by the “tradition of public disinvestment” in the sector.
The text highlights the increase in poverty, aggravated by food and fuel inflation, and claims that, “according to European standards, a Portuguese worker is not capable of surviving financially with the product of his work”.
The document also highlights “the irrelevance of the Justice sector”, a sector that has been on strike for months for better working conditions and wages, and the “lack of care” in the management of the Portuguese airline TAP, controlled by the State.
“Faced with this scenario of widespread degradation of the credibility of the government and the prime minister in particular, Chega understands that it is time to open a new political cycle in Portugal through the approval of this motion of censure”, concludes the text.
This is the second motion of censure that Chega has presented in this legislature, after another that was rejected in July 2022.
António Costa has led Portugal’s socialist government since 2015 and is in his third term, the first with an absolute majority.
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