The Portuguese parliament is already barely invested in its impasse

The result of this first vote was met with surprise because the far-right Chiga (Enough) party announced that it would support his candidacy, in the hope of electing someone from his party to one of the vice-presidential positions.

But it is clear that not all of Chiga's deputies followed the instructions that their president, Andre Ventura, claims to have given them.

In front of the press, Mr. Ventura accused members of the Democratic Alliance (moderate right) of publicly abandoning the agreement they had reached regarding the election of the Assembly's president.

Then the Democratic Alliance led by new Prime Minister Luis Montenegro decided to withdraw Mr. Aguiar Branco's candidacy, leading to a deadlock.

The deputies decided to organize a second vote in the evening and Mr. Aguiar Branco presented himself again, but this time he had to face two other candidates (a socialist elected official and a parliamentarian from Chiga) and he has not yet won. The number of votes needed to elect him.

After eight years of socialist rule, the Democratic Alliance won the legislative elections with 28.8% of the votes and 80 deputies out of a total of 230, compared to 28% of the votes and 78 seats for the Socialist Party.

For his part, Chiga clearly strengthened his position as the country's third political force, increasing his number of seats from 12 to 50 deputies, by 18.1%.

After pledging during the election campaign not to rule with the support of the far right, Mr. Montenegro decided to form a minority government and called on the opposition's “sense of responsibility” to demand that it not form a “negative coalition” to block him.

For his part, the Shiga leader continued to stress his desire to reach an agreement with the moderate right to form a stable majority, without necessarily entering the government, while threatening to oppose it if it refused to negotiate.