Luis Montenegro nominated as prime minister of Portugal

Luis Montenegro was nominated as prime minister of Portugal in the early hours of Thursday after his party's victory in the legislative elections on March 10. The lawyer and parliamentarian will replace socialist Antonio Costa, in power since the end of 2015.

The candidate of the center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) party will present the composition of his government next Wednesday. He will take up his duties on April 2, according to what he told the press in a brief statement reported by AFP. The comments were made after meeting with Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

The meeting marked the end of the consultation process undertaken by the head of state with the parties with parliamentary representation before inviting the winner of the elections to form a new government.

A 'relative' majority

In the elections, the political party of Montenegro took 28.8% of the votes and 80 deputies out of a total of 230. It was far from the 116 that mark the absolute majority, but its leader said he was prepared to govern as a minority .

"There is a majority, relative, not absolute. ... It is on the basis of that majority, if that is what the President of the Republic understands, that we will present our government," he stated on Wednesday after a first audience with the head of state.

In that sense, the socialist party, affected by the resignation of Costa, who did not run for a new term after being cited in an investigation for influence peddling, finished in second place with 28% of the vote and 78 seats.

The surprise of the election day, as AFP recalls, was the right-wing party Chega, which reinforced its status as the third-strongest political force and went from 12 to 50 deputies, garnering 18.1% of the vote.