Goan-origin Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa bows out

Portugal's snap election results in a hung parliament, with potential shifts in immigration policies and Indo-Portuguese relations.

With nearly all ballots counted, the ruling Socialist Party (PS) narrowly came second, with 28.7% of the votes, to the centre-right Democratic Alliance (PSD), which garnered 29.6% of vote share, as higher than average polling in a snap Portuguese general election yielded a hung parliament. Historically, the balance of power in the 230-member House has alternated between the PS and the PSD.

However, even if the PS had cobbled together a coalition to remain in office, it would not have retained the Goan-origin Antonio Costa, who has been Prime Minister for eight years – the past three and a half months as caretaker.

The 62-year-old Costa, who undertook a state visit to India in 2017, which included a journey to his ancestral village of Rua Abade Faria, Margao, Goa, resigned as Prime Minister in November after law enforcement authorities arrested his Chief of Staff and personal adviser together with naming two of his Cabinet Ministers as suspects over alleged irregularities in awarding state contracts. Police also raided Mr. Costa’s official residence and he, consequently, became a subject of an official investigation.

For the first time in half a century, the Far Right in Portuguese politics, in the five-year-old incarnation of the Chega (Enough) party, significantly raised its head winning 18.1% of the votes to emerge as the third largest formation. This could compel a PSD government to seek Chega’s support to pass legislation.

The PSD’s prospective Prime Minister, Luis Montenegro, though, insisted he will not turn to Chega for parliamentary business, let alone grant it the status of kingmaker, describing its leader Andre Ventura as ‘often xenophobic, racist, populist and excessively demagogic’.

Mr. Ventura, formerly a trainee Catholic priest, catapulted into public attention as a football commentator on television – football being Portugal’s most popular sport – before venturing into politics.

As PSD activists celebrated with ‘Victory’ signs at their party headquarters, Mr. Ventura remarked: ‘The Portuguese clearly said they want a two-party government: Chega and the Democratic Alliance.’