The President of the Republic will on Tuesday inaugurate the XXIV Constitutional Government, the third executive that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will take office, but the first led by the PSD, the party of which he already presided.
The ceremony is scheduled for 18:00 at the Palacio da Ajuda, less than a month after the legislative elections of March 10, which brought victory to AD (the electoral coalition formed by PSD, CDS-PP and PPM) with approximately 54 thousand votes and 0 .85 percentage points ahead of the PS, the narrowest margin in democratic history.
The new executive body, headed by PSD President Luis Montenegro, which includes its President Nuno Melo as Minister of the PSD-PP, consists of 17 ministers, with secretaries of state still unknown, who will only be in office, Friday-Fair.
The XXIV constitutional government will have two ministers of state: Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel, who will be the government’s number two, and Finance Minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento.
Montenegro will also have a deputy minister – Manuel Castro Almeida with the portfolio of territorial cohesion – who ranks fifth in the government hierarchy after Presidency Minister Antonio Leitan Amaro and before Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pedro Duarte. .
More than 60% of the ministerial list belongs to the PSD Standing Committee – the core of the leadership – and four people are represented as independents, all ministers.
In total, the XXIV government will have seven ministers, two less than the last PS head led by António Costa.
Apart from Luis Montenegro, who never held executive functions, among the 17 ministers there is only one repeater: Maria da Graça Carvalho was Minister of Science and Higher Education in the PSD/SDS-PP governments of Durán Barroso and Santana Lopes, she will now be Minister of the Environment and energy.
Another six future ministers, such as Paulo Rangel, António Leitan Amaro, Manuel Castro Almeida, Pedro Duarte, Fernando Alexandre and Miguel Pinto Luz, formerly held secretariats of state, and four are currently members of the European Parliament (Paulo Rangel, Graça Carvalho, José Manuel Fernandez and Nuno Melo).
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke publicly about the new government only once, on March 21, and to highlight the importance for the country of Luis Montenegro, who came to Brussels as prime minister-designate at a hearing that took place later at midnight.
“It was important for the country that the prime minister-designate should take part this Monday in Brussels, as the future prime minister if he was to form a government, in important meetings,” said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, highlighting the meetings held in that city between Montenegro and current Prime Minister Antonio Costa, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and members of the European People’s Party.
When the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, took the oath of office on October 26, 2019, the second government, led by António Costa, a minority leader, which, unlike the first (still sworn in by Cavaco Silva), was not supported by written agreements. with parties to the left of the PS – a condition that the head of state himself considered unnecessary and which the PKP rejected.
On 30 March 2022, the inauguration of the XXIII constitutional government – Costa’s third – was marked by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s warning to the Prime Minister that he would be difficult to replace in the middle of the legislature, arguing that the Portuguese “they gave an absolute majority not only to the party, but and to man.”
The XXIII Constitutional Government began its work with a horizon of four and a half years – until September/October 2016 – but António Costa resigned as Prime Minister on November 7 last year, after it became known exactly what the purpose of the judicial investigation was, initiated by the prosecutor’s office at the Supreme Court as a result of Operation “Influencer”.
The President of the Republic immediately accepted the resignation of the Prime Minister and decided to dissolve Parliament, calling early legislative elections for March 10, with the result that the PSD/SDS-PP government will be sworn in on Tuesday.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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