Portugal’s government survives far-right no confidence motion

OVIEDO, Spain

Antonio Costa’s left-wing government survived a vote of no confidence Tuesday put forward by the far-right Chega party.

During more than three hours of heated debate, Costa dismissed the motion as a media stunt that “means nothing” to the Portuguese people. “While the government focuses on solutions, Chega feeds on chaos,” he added.

Chega leader Andre Ventura opened the debate and said the current government and prime minister were “the worst” that Portugal ever had. Portugal was ruled by the authoritarian Antonio de Oliveira Salazar from 1932 to 1968.

Only the centrist Liberal Initiative (IL) party backed Chega in the vote. And with just 17 votes in favor, 62 abstentions and 131 votes against the motion, the parties were not close to toppling the government.

The motion did serve to highlight fractures with Portugal’s right-wing bloc.

Ventura criticized the center-right Social Democratic Party (PSD), which did not support the motion, suggesting it was siding with a government "that has been destroying the country."

PSD's parliamentary leader, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, responded by emphasizing the party's solution-driven approach, while IL’s leader, Joao Cotrim Figueiredo, criticized the "childish” motion, suggesting Costa should be "quite pleased" with the results. His party backed the motion only because it submitted its own no-confidence motion in the last term.

Ventura touted Chega, which received 7% of the vote in the 2022 national elections, as the only right-wing party that will beat the country’s left-wing forces.

In 2022, Costa’s government won an unexpected majority, only the second in the party’s history.

No confidence motions have a history of losing in Portugal. Since 1979, 28 have been voted on by politicians, but only one, in 1987, was successful.