Unexpected Majority For PM Costa Supports Policy Stability

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa and his centre-left Socialist Party (PS) won an unexpected majority in the snap general election held on 30 January, providing the PM with a platform to continue his broadly market-friendly policy agenda.

• Opinion polls prior to the election, showing the PS losing ground to the centre-rigth Social Democrats (PSD), proved to be ill-founded, with the PS winning at least an additional nine seats, taking its total to 117 seats out of 230 according to partial results.

Source: Ministério da Administração Interna, MNI. Four seats yet to be declared.

• Costa's majority comes largely at the expense of the two far-left parties that had previously propped up the PS, the communist Unitary Democratic Coaliton and the left-wing populist Left Bloc, which lost six and 14 seats respectively. These two parties brought about the snap election, having voted down the gov'ts budget in late-2021.
• Following the confirmation of his party winning a majority, Costa confirmed that he would still seek to have as broad support as possible for this gov'ts agenda. Nevertheless, the securing of the first parliamentary majority since then-PM Jose Socrates won 121 seats for the PS in the 2005 election will allow Costa a degree of flexibility that was not the case during the previous gov't.
• Should be noted the strong performance of parties of the right, with the nationalist CHEGA and the libertarian Liberal Initiative both making strong gains to become the third and fourth-largest parties in the Assembly of the Republic.