Parliament will debate next Tuesday, 8 September, a motion of no confidence in the Government tabled by the populist right-wing Chega party this week. The decision was taken on Thursday, 3 September, by the Conference of Parliamentary Leaders and, according to the body’s spokesperson, Social Democratic Party (PSD) MP Francisco Figueira, was reached by consensus, with MPs stressing the importance of debating the issue “as quickly as possible”.
Francisco Figueira also clarified that, “under parliamentary rules, there will also be a Permanent Committee meeting on 7 September”. The committee acts in place of Parliament when the chamber is not sitting, including during parliamentary recesses. The PSD MP stressed that the meeting is necessary to “fulfil the obligation” for the Permanent Committee to formally convene Parliament for the debate on the motion of no confidence.
Figueira added that, as well as reaching consensus among the parties on the need to follow the proposals put forward by the President of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar Branco, MPs had also agreed on the importance of resolving the matter “as quickly as possible”. This meant “cutting the deadlines to the limit allowed by the Rules of Procedure [of the Assembly of the Republic] and the Constitution, so that the country does not have to wait too long for the debate”.
For reference, the motion was tabled amid a dispute over cabinet minister Luís Neves, whose continued presence in Government has been criticised by Chega party leader André Ventura. Ventura has accused Neves of failing to adequately address questions and allegations surrounding him, and has criticised Prime Minister Luís Montenegro for refusing to dismiss him. The controversies surrounding Neves date largely from his time as director-general of the Judicial Police (PJ). These include the handling of a trailer seized in a drug-trafficking investigation, which was moved to the premises of a company that had carried out work at one of Neves’s properties, as well as questions over contracts awarded by the PJ to the same company and alleged irregularities in the police’s procurement procedures. Neves has denied wrongdoing and defended the decisions under scrutiny, although he has acknowledged making “one or two mistakes”. The allegations have not resulted in any finding that he committed corruption or illegally benefited from the contractor, with the various matters still subject to investigation.
Despite the urgency attached to the debate by MPs, the Chega initiative is already expected to fail, given that the Socialist Party (PS) had announced even before Chega formally submitted the motion to Parliament that it would vote against it. “We will contribute to the political stability of the country, and there will be no political crisis in Portugal because of the PS,” the party’s secretary-general, José Luís Carneiro, said on Wednesday in Maputo, Mozambique.
A critical stance towards the motion of no confidence put forward by Chega was also unsurprisingly expressed on Wednesday, 2 September, by PSD parliamentary leader Hugo Soares, in an interview with the SIC Notícias television station.
“It is another epilogue, the end of the ‘silly season’, in which all of us, or almost all of us, have been feeding and speculating and commenting on what MP André Ventura wants, and we are all falling for it,” Hugo Soares said, referring to the second motion of no confidence brought by Chega against a government led by Luís Montenegro.
The prime minister also already faced a third motion of no confidence, tabled by the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), which was rejected by Parliament last year.
This is the 36th motion of no confidence brought against a government elected under democracy in Portugal. Only one has succeeded, bringing down the government led by Aníbal Cavaco Silva in 1987.
Source: LUSA
Photo credit: Paulo Novais / LUSA
