Entries and exits of government officials change one in ten deputies

Next Wednesday will witness a true revolution in the PS parliamentary group, as 17 ministers and secretaries of State from the outgoing Executive of António Costa, which the day before gave way to the XXIV Constitutional Government, of Luís Montenegro, will become deputies. The socialist bench, which started the legislature still under the leadership of Eurico Brilhante Dias, but which is expected to be chaired by Francisco Assis or Pedro Delgado Alves, receives significant reinforcements, very useful in opposing a minority Government in difficulties from the first moment, clearly evident in the election of the social democrat Aguiar-Branco to the presidency of the Assembly of the Republic only on the fourth attempt.

Conversely, six elected members of the PSD (Luís Montenegro, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, Ana Paula Martins, António Leitão Amaro, Miguel Pinto Luz and Rita Júdice), as well as the president of the CDS-PP, Nuno Melo, will take office tomorrow as members of the Government, and there may be more departures in the two parliamentary benches of the Democratic Alliance when the Secretaries of State take office (whose identities are yet to be revealed), which is scheduled for Friday.

But even if none of these choices fall to newly sworn-in deputies, the sum of the arrivals and departures of government officials means that at least one in ten of the 230 elected representatives of the Portuguese people who participated in the first week of the legislature are leaving the hemicycle.

Among the protagonists of the outgoing Government who join the socialist bench are the until now Minister of the Presidency, Mariana Vieira da Silva (who was head of the list for Lisbon), the person responsible for the Finance portfolio, Fernando Medina, and the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Ana Catarina Mendes (head of list for Setúbal). These last two may be due, as they have been given strong chances for the socialist list in the European elections on June 9, but other participants in the meetings of António Costa’s Council of Ministers were also elected deputies: Ana Abrunhosa (Territorial Coesão ), Ana Mendes Godinho (Work), José Luís Carneiro (Internal Administration), Manuel Pizarro (Health) and Marina Gonçalves (Housing), very close to the general secretary of the PS, Pedro Nuno Santos, of whom he was chief of staff when he He was Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs and coordinator of Geringonça.

Also on their way to the PS parliamentary bench are the Secretaries of State Ana Sofia Antunes (Inclusion), António Mendonça Mendes (Deputy to the Prime Minister), Eduardo Pinheiro (Planning), Isabel Almeida Rodrigues (Equality and Migrations), Isabel Oneto (Internal Administration), João Paulo Correia (Youth and Sports), José Mário Costa (Sea), Nuno Fazenda (Tourism, Commerce and Services) and also Paulo Cafôfo (Portuguese Communities). But the former mayor of Funchal is also the current leader of PS-Madeira, so the priority given to early regional elections, called by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, for May 26, could eventually lead to no stay in the chamber for a long time. On the contrary, number two on the PS list for Madeira, José Miguel Iglésias, who took office on Tuesday, will not suspend his mandate.

With the arrival of the outgoing government officials, all – or almost all – of the 17 temporary members of the PS parliamentary group who started the legislature will leave. This is the case of figures who have political weight within the party at local or district level, as happens with Fernando José and Ivan Gonçalves (both from the Setúbal Circle), with the former president of the Lisbon Council (and who remains at the head of the Alcântara Parish Council) Davide Amado and with Rita Borges Madeira, who represented the capital’s circle in the last two legislatures.