Portugal’s center-right government collapsed late Tuesday, March 11, after Prime Minister Luís Montenegro lost a confidence vote, triggered by a scandal involving his family business. Voters are set to head to the polls in May.
Montenegro’s defeat paves the way for Portugal’s third election in less than four years, as the country faces mounting pressure to boost defense spending and grapples with rising anti-immigration sentiment that has emboldened the far right.
Leading a fragile minority government for just 11 months, Montenegro has been engulfed in controversy over his alleged failure to divest from a legal consulting firm he co-founded. The ousted prime minister, head of the Democratic Alliance coalition, established the company Spinumviva in 2021 while he was out of politics.
However, he came under scrutiny after revelations that he had transferred ownership of the firm to his wife and sons in 2022—a move critics argued was invalid. Under Portuguese law, they claimed, the transfer was legally meaningless since he and his wife had opted for joint ownership of all assets acquired after their marriage.
His government fell when opposition Socialists, left-wing parties, and the far-right Chega party voted against him in a confidence motion that he himself had called last week.
“We tried everything,” Montenegro said. “Even if the country does not understand why we are heading to elections, in May, amid such a challenging international climate, I believe it is better to find a clear solution in the next two months rather than face a year of ongoing instability.”
The scandal surrounding Montenegro has reinforced public perceptions of widespread corruption in Portuguese politics, where past prime ministers have also faced bribery allegations.
Despite his downfall, Montenegro has made it clear that he intends to run in the upcoming election, maintaining that he has done nothing wrong.
