A Parliament like you’ve never seen before. Who sits where in the XVI legislature

The new Parliament takes office this Tuesday and brings several changes. Here’s what we know so far

March 26, 2024, practically a month before the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, a new legislature begins, there are new faces in the hemicycle and CNN Portugal had access to the plan of what will be the distribution of the Assembly of Republic from this Tuesday.

On the right, the PSD, the most represented party, has the support of the two elected CDS deputies, but the Democratic Alliance that won the legislative elections will be separated, with the centrists sitting between the eight Liberal Initiative deputies and the now 50 from Chega. On the left, Livre will sit in the front row, alongside the socialists and as if separating the waters between PS and the most left-wing parliamentarians, Bloco and PCP. The PAN’s only deputy, Inês de Sousa Real, sits in a place she knows well, between socialists and social democrats.

And what makes it so opportune to be on the front lines? As simple as this: media coverage. João Pacheco, political scientist and commentator for CNN Portugal, explains that several party figures “use the Parliament stage as a media space” and try to be in the front row, even if they do not speak. “It’s the framework for television, and if they appear, they are seen more by their fellow citizens, their countrymen”, he continues. But there is still a dispute with those who already appear regularly, lead portfolios, and sit on committees: “Who is going to talk about it? Who is going to intervene on this or that issue? This happens a lot in the PS and PSD.”

In the case of Chega, for example, João Pacheco predicts that out of 50 deputies “one or another unknown person will end up becoming more noticed”, while some less favorable to the party’s rhetoric and positioning “will be more hidden”. “They will, in essence, be part of the crowd that intervenes more to support and applaud than to speak in Parliament”, he says. In short, he concludes that “that front of the parliamentary bench will not be very different from what we are used to”, even though we now have fifty members, and these with more than twice the intervention time – depending on the topics under debate and their respective grids.

Regarding the return of the CDS – even if only as a duo – the expert understands that its position to the right of IL and to the left of Chega corresponds to an “ideological and even programmatic” vision of the party itself. “It was the most to the right of Parliament for many years, and this space is now distributed by Chega, also considering the other places in the Liberal Initiative”, he explains. In other words, “it is between the most radical conservatism of one, with some disruption and even openness in other matters of the other”, but both on the right, he emphasizes.

CDS-PP president Nuno Melo is more direct. It will sit between the two parties in question “out of basic rationality”, he tells CNN Portugal, considering that IL considers itself “as a party of the center, and even of the center-left in terms of customs”. He also recalls the formal request presented by the liberals to the Assembly of the Republic, in February 2022, to change places in the hemicycle and move between the socialists and the social democrats. The proposal presented during the leadership of Cotrim de Figueiredo was rejected.

On the other hand, Nuno Melo argues that the position of the CDS bench could not be different, “since Chega often assumes itself as borderline in the system itself.”

“In truth, this distribution is of much more interest to the parties themselves than to other people”, ponders João Pacheco, explaining that common citizens often do not even perceive it in the same way. Furthermore, he considers that “perhaps this is not the most important issue of all that concern the functioning of Parliament”, but rather the “proximity that parties have, particularly those on the right, in terms of converging and supporting each other politically ”. “Here the PS will have as much responsibility as the PSD in exercising governance”, he concludes.

House renovations

After the electoral process that culminated on March 10, old deputies leave, new ones enter and there are cabinet changes to be made. It was, in fact, one of the topics discussed at the leaders’ conference, this Tuesday.

On the main floor, where Chega occupies an office and the Acácio Lino room, the party conquers another room that once belonged to the Bloco de Esquerda. This, in turn, starts to occupy one of the spaces that belonged to the CDU.

In agreement with the PS and PSD, André Ventura’s 38 new deputies took over the Socialist Party rooms, on the 1st floor of the new building, next to the side facade of the São Bento Palace. They complain, however, that there is no meeting room, unlike the other floors.

The CDS-PP now has three new offices, but so far CNN Portugal has no further details about the floors on which they are located or who they belonged to.

A “more cautious” Parliament leader?

Now, once the seats have been decided, the new Parliament takes office before the election of Augusto Santos Silva’s successor as president of the Assembly of the Republic. The first session of the XVI legislature, at 10:00, is chaired by the communist deputy António Filipe, at the invitation of the PSD “as the largest and most voted parliamentary group”. In the afternoon, at 3:00 pm, the new AR board is finally elected and José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, Minister of Defense in the Passos Coelho Government between 2011 and 2015, is one of the candidates. André Ventura has already promised to make it possible, in exchange for a vice-president of Chega. But this relationship may have a lot to say – or not.

Speaking to CNN Portugal, Pedro Pinto, deputy and president of the Chega parliamentary group, believes that he has “all the conditions for the relationship to be normal”, which in his opinion did not happen with Augusto Santos Silva.

Political scientist João Pacheco also “sees no reason not to be”, especially as he feels that the next president of the Assembly, whoever he may be, will adopt a more “cordial” stance towards each party. “In two years, Chega enters the AR, Santos Silva succeeds in a style very similar to Ferro Rodrigues, of conditioning Chega and not letting it intervene, and now Parliament is forced to accept the democratic result of a popular election that puts the He feels very comfortable playing the role of vice-presidency”, he explains.

It also uses the example of Pedro Nuno Santos’ speech, on election night, who acknowledged that “there are not 18% racist or xenophobic voters in Portugal, but there are many angry Portuguese”. “His reaction is much more cautious. Therefore, even the PS already deals with Chega differently.”