The Social Democrats are convening at 9:00 PM at a hotel in Lisbon to discuss and vote on the “electoral coalition” with which they plan to present themselves in the early legislative elections scheduled for May 18. The coalition is expected to be a renewal of the Democratic Alliance (AD), including the CDS-PP and PPM.
Simultaneously, the National Council of the CDS-PP will meet at the headquarters of the Christian Democrats to vote on the coalition agreement with the PSD for the legislative elections and establish criteria for the candidate lists for deputies.
According to the agenda published on the party’s website, this “urgent extraordinary” meeting will cover three points: the presentation, discussion, and voting on the electoral coalition agreement for the legislative elections; voting on the criteria for the lists of candidates for deputies; and an analysis of the political situation.
A year ago, the leaders of the PSD, CDS-PP, and PPM publicly signed a pre-coalition electoral agreement in January, valid for the 2024 legislative and European elections, which has not yet occurred this time.
In the previous agreement, the CDS-PP secured the fourth place in Lisbon and second in Porto (along with others that ultimately were not eligible), while the PPM was listed as 19th in Lisbon, ultimately excluding them from the Assembleia da República.
Within the PSD, national counselors are expected to approve the designation of Luís Montenegro as the PSD candidate for Prime Minister, in accordance with the party’s statutes, and the proposal from the National Political Commission (CPN)—which will convene beforehand—regarding the list of candidates for the early legislative elections.
Last week, PSD Secretary-General Hugo Soares mentioned that the party would select deputies for the upcoming legislative elections using “the same profile as the last elections” of 2024, meaning based on political criteria without precluding candidates for local elections from the lists.
For the previous legislative elections, on March 10 of last year, the PSD’s CPN approved criteria for preparing the lists that excluded candidates who had been “convicted at the first instance, indicted” or those with “strong indications” of crimes against the State.
In the current legislature, PSD deputies Luís Newton and Carlos Eduardo Reis suspended their mandates after being charged by the Portuguese Public Prosecutor’s Office in the Tutti Frutti case, which has been investigating alleged favoritism towards PS and PSD militants since 2018.
Out of the 78 deputies elected by the PSD in 2024, 14 are currently part of the XXIV Constitutional Government, including the Prime Minister, five ministers, and eight secretaries of state. For the CDS-PP, only one elected official, leader Nuno Melo, assumed a government position, as Minister of National Defense.
Besides Luís Montenegro, the PSD’s lists of deputies included the Minister of State and Finance Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, Health Minister Ana Paula Martins, Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro, Infrastructure and Housing Minister Miguel Pinto Luz, and Justice Minister Rita Júdice.
Deputies elected a year ago also include current Secretaries of State Emídio Sousa, Silvério Regalado (who joined in the only reshuffle, replacing Hernâni Dias who returned to parliament), Clara Marques Mendes, José Cesário, Alexandre Homem Cristo, João Moura, Paulo Ribeiro, and Inês Domingos.
The President of the Republic announced on March 13 the dissolution of parliament and the scheduling of early elections for May 18 following the resignation of the PSD/CDS-PP Government. The resignation resulted from the parliament’s rejection of a vote of confidence in the government on March 11, declared after weeks of uncertainty regarding the Prime Minister’s personal and professional affairs linked to the company Spinumviva.
