Prime Minister and ministers of the XXIV Constitutional Government take office today

The Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, and the 17 ministers of the XXIV Constitutional Government take office today at 6 pm, at the Ajuda National Palace, less than a month after the AD’s victory in the March 10 legislative elections.

This will be the third executive that the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, will take office – but the first led by the PSD, the party he already presided over – and neither of the previous two fulfilled their mandate to the end.

In the Ambassadors’ Room, the head of state will inaugurate the prime minister and then the 17 ministers, who will be called one by one, in hierarchical order, to take the oath and sign the instrument of inauguration.

The Secretaries of State of the XXIV Constitutional Government, who are not yet known, will only take office on Friday.

The inauguration ceremony is followed by interventions from the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro. Both have maintained almost total public silence in recent days.

The XXIV Constitutional Government will have two ministers of State – that of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel, who will be the Government’s “number two”, and that of Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento – and Montenegro will also have a Deputy Minister, Manuel Castro Almeida, with the Territorial Cohesion portfolio and the management of community funds.

More than 60% of the ministerial list belongs to the PSD Permanent Commission – the hard core of the leadership – and there are four names presented as independent, all ministers.

In total, the XXIV Government will have seven ministers, two less than the last PS executive led by António Costa.

In addition to Luís Montenegro, who never held executive functions, among the 17 ministers there is only one repeater – Maria da Graça Carvalho was Minister of Science and Higher Education in the PSD/CDS-PP Governments of Durão Barroso and Santana Lopes – and six others have already held secretaries of State in the past (Paulo Rangel, António Leitão Amaro, Manuel Castro Almeida, Pedro Duarte, Fernando Alexandre and Miguel Pinto Luz).