What to do with this victory?

Pedro Passos Coelho’s statements at the PSD anniversary luncheon are, in my opinion, the most important political fact of this election campaign. Although I think that the former Prime Minister is finished with politics, for obvious reasons that it would be tedious to have to explain again, I think that, in those short statements, Passos Coelho pointed out what is the Achilles heel of Montenegro’s government: the total absence of an idea for the country in the medium and long term. The total lack of ideas is not a unique characteristic of this government and, in fact, it is quite appreciated by the electorate – there is no majority coalition that prefers change. António Costa, blessed with political stability for eight long years, left the country structurally worse off. He did not deal with problems such as housing or competitiveness, which today are a time bomb, and created others, such as uncontrolled immigration, which will have social and political consequences that, in the long term, will be explosive.

But let us return to Passos Coelho. The former head of government stated the obvious: political stability is not an end in itself, but rather a means by which it is possible to govern and resolve the country's problems, both minor and major, in order to, in the long term, achieve a balanced increase in the well-being of the population. Montenegro's entire governance has been based on a premise that is the opposite of that stated by Passos Coelho. From the beginning, the current head of government has been fundamentally concerned with protecting his own skin and, above all, helping the PSD to win back segments of the electorate who, fundamentally, have no incentive to support any change in Portugal. These are electorates with static preferences – above all, they want everything to stay the same. Ultimately, the dream of Montenegro and many PSD members is to make the party a kind of PS 2.0, with equal electoral success.

However, there is one thing that separates Passos Coelho and Montenegro. The current Prime Minister is more aligned with the preferences and incentives of the average voter in Portugal, which potentially makes him more successful electorally in the short term. Firstly, an assessment of successive elections in Portugal over the last decade shows that voters prefer and reward candidates who are immobile and distribute short-term benefits. Secondly, as the Spinumviva case clearly shows, ethics seem to have little importance for the Portuguese electorate. Assuming that the current polls are confirmed on election day, there is a lesson to be learned from the country's political situation in 2025.

Ethics do not enter into the calculation of the vote of most voters. Of course, you might say that I am simply biased and that Montenegro has no ethical problems. I admit that this is a possible explanation. However, and in all honesty, given everything we know about the Prime Minister’s professional activities, together with his attitude of finding it insulting and even vaguely unpleasant for anyone to demand explanations, it seems difficult to consider that there are no ethical dilemmas or lack of transparency. That this should happen in a country that is well aware of Operation Marquês is even more surprising. Of course, Montenegro has absolutely nothing to do with Sócrates. However, the principle is the same. It is the intensity that is different.

In addition to the relationship between the electorate and ethics, there will be another lesson to be learned from these elections, which will have consequences, above all, for the PSD in the long term. Contrary to what was announced in 2024, Chega is not a flash in the pan in the Portuguese party system. In March 2024, there were those who wanted to assure us that the election of 50 deputies had been merely an episodic event resulting from an abnormal electoral turnout, of voters who, once their anger had been released, would return to abstention. Nothing could be further from the truth. According to the polls, Chega will have electoral continuity, which has contributed greatly to the creation of an electoral habit, which, as political science shows, is a very strong determinant for being able to anchor a party and make it electorally stable in the long term.

Montenegro’s lack of reforms will have dire consequences for the PSD in the long term and even sows the potential seeds for the party’s implosion. While the PS can govern without reforming because it still does not have, even remotely, an opponent who is increasingly disputing its political space, the same cannot be said of the PSD. There will come a time when, for natural reasons of the passage of time and the erosion of the political cycle, the electorate will once again turn to the left, in the classic alternation. With a better leader than Pedro Nuno Santos, the PS will win the elections. At that time, Chega will be fully consolidated, with a parliamentary bloc of around 60 deputies, and, most likely, with the capacity to dispute the leadership of the right-wing bloc with the PSD.

Ultimately, if the PSD does not carry out reforms, showing that it is functionally indispensable to the system, fulfilling the role of great reformer while the PS fulfills that of great redistributor of wealth, what will prevent the PSD from sinking and the emergence of Chega as an alternative to the socialists? There is a great debate on the right between the PSD and Chega between the original and the copy. Applying the same reasoning to the system as a whole, why do voters need a PSD that is a mere copy of the PS? When that happens, and it will happen with the current direction, the central cleavage in the party system will be between Chega and all the others. At that moment, the PS and PSD will be functional equivalents and, since the original is better than the copy, we know very well what will happen.