Election of the Weekend III: Portugal
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The third and final election of the weekend is in Portugal, where all 230 seats in the Assembly of the Republic are up. Portuguese elections are PR/MMD, with the district seats ranging from 48 in Lisbon and 40 in Porto down to 2 in the least populous districts. This is an early election, triggered by the Prime Minister, Luis Montenegro, losing a confidence vote back in March. This was triggered by the “Spinumviva case” which appears to be a minor corruption scandal involving members of the Prime Minister’s family getting payments from a real estate firm in a way that created conflicts of interest. It didn’t take much to bring down this government, given that the center-right alliance had a slim minority government (80/230 seats, with 78 for the socialists). The 2024 election also saw the best result for a third party in decades for Chega, Portugal’s entry into the far right populist party genre, who captured 18% and 50 seats. A similarly divided government is the likely outcome of this weekend’s election, with the scandal not doing a whole lot of damage to the Prime Minister:
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.”
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.”
Polling suggests a very similar result, but with a slight improvement for Montengro’s conservative coalition, and a slight loss of support for both PS and Chega, relative to 2024.