Like Montenegro, Melo (and the hand of Portas) resurrected AD in a few weeks | Analysis

The idea of ​​an alliance that brought together PSD, IL and CDS began to germinate on the day that the Prime Minister, António Costa, resigned – on November 7th. That night, at SIC, State councilor and commentator Luís Marques Mendes put the hypothesis on the table. It was an issue that Luís Montenegro, leader of the PSD, had to resolve. With some obstacles along the way, the Democratic Alliance (AD) ended up being born. Today it has its first convention in Lisbon, where PSD and CDS figures such as Leonor Beleza and Paulo Portas speak.

The first setback of “AD 2.0” was IL’s refusal to join the coalition. The decision was communicated by Rui Rocha personally to Luís Montenegro. The Social Democrats were reassessing whether it was worth forming a pre-election coalition just with the CDS, a party almost doomed to disappear. The advantage that Hondt’s method gives to coalitions was weighed.

Paulo Portas, the man who led the CDS for 17 years, noted this in his commentary space on TVI. At the Global of 26 November, the former deputy prime minister highlighted that, in light of a simulation based on the 2022 results, a pre-election alliance between the three parties would automatically give ten more deputies and that the PS would have seen its majority slip away absolute.

It was the second Sunday in a row that Portas insisted on the electoral advantage of a coalition. On the same night, on SIC, Marques Mendes argued that the PSD should form a coalition with the CDS despite IL having withdrawn and intending to compete with its own lists.

The idea of ​​a pre-election understanding had already been floated during the PSD congress, on November 25th. That same day, Nuno Melo evolved in the anti-coalitionist speech that he had maintained until then, considering that an agreement with the PSD would make sense as a matter of “basic arithmetic and strategic lucidity”.

The week that followed the Social Democrats’ congress was decisive for the construction of the AD. With the personal commitment of Paulo Portas, the CDS brought together its staff, also calling in former deputies, in a kind of charm operation to try to seduce the center-right again. At the top of the table sat the current party president, Nuno Melo, flanked by Paulo Portas and Manuel Monteiro. The image was given of a united party and with cadres that Luís Montenegro had already publicly recognized as having political value.

The former deputy prime minister’s role in rehabilitating the CDS is seen as the last great service he provides to the party, after leaving the leadership eight years ago. Furthermore, it is not desirable for a potential presidential candidate – Portas maintains a taboo on this – to have a dying party on his CV.

At the end of November, when it was already clear that the coalition was unavoidable, Luís Montenegro admitted that he was open to dialogue with the CDS, PPM and independents. Even without the IL, the PSD leader believed it was necessary to send a signal that he was capable of bringing together the center-right, leaving Chega relegated to the radical right.

Montenegro wanted to resurrect a brand considered prestigious – AD from 1979 – in all its dimensions: with PPM and independents. Even though many continue to doubt the inclusion of monarchists.

For the CDS, integrating the pre-election agreement that opened the door to the election of two deputies was already an early electoral victory, in fact the only one across the entire party spectrum before March 10th.

Therefore, seen from the inside, AD is a project win-win, in other words, doubly advantageous: the PSD shows its ability to aggregate, the CDS returns to Parliament.

On the other hand, the union offered yet another advantage: generating a right-wing democratic front to combat the growth of Chega, with the CDS having the fundamental role of trying to attract undecided conservatives and enter into sensitive issues such as immigration (which André’s party Ventura monopolized) in a less radical way.

The experience of two government coalitions in the last 20 years has now facilitated dialogue between PSD and CDS. On the other hand, Luís Montenegro and Nuno Melo had known each other for many years, especially because they served in Parliament and on the Constitutional Affairs Committee for a long time in the 2000s.

The agreement is closed between the two in December, but, when it comes to announcing it, there is a new shock: the PPM refuses to enter and threatens to challenge the AD brand in the Constitutional Court.

The first announcement of the coalition is only between PSD and CDS, on December 21st, but with the horizon of one electoral cycle: legislative, European and local. It was only in January of this year that the PPM reversed its initial decision and joined the two parties.

The AD’s first test – with the same three parties – are the regional elections in the Azores. It’s already February 4th.