Portugal’s centre-right coalition government creates Ministry for State Reform
The second Democratic Alliance (AD) government headed by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro has created a new ministry devoted to State reform.
The government, which won the General Election in Portugal on May 18, has scrapped the Ministry of Youth and Modernisation and replaced it with the Ministry for State Reform.
The Ministry of the Economy will now fall under the aegis of the Ministry of Territorial Cohesion with the surprise departure of the Minister of the Economy, Pedro Reis from the government ranks.
The current Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, will become the minister of what has been dubbed the ‘super ministry’ of both the Economy and Territorial Cohesion while the Ministry of Culture will now become the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Youth.
The new government has kept on 13 ministers – there are six women in all – from the previous executive, and has appointed three new ones: two who did not hold government positions in the last government. Gonçalo Matias becomes the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Reform while Maria Lúcia Amaral becomes the Minister of Internal Administration.
Carlos Abreu Amorim, who had been Secretary of State of Parliamentary Affairs, has been promoted to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs.
Pedro Duarte, until now Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Margarida Blasco, Minister of the Interior; and Dalila Rodrigues, Minister of Culture have also left the government.
In the snap General Election the Democratic Alliance coalition (PSD/CDS-PP) won again but without an absolute majority, electing 91 MPs out of 230 (11 more than a year ago), of whom 89 are from the PSD and two from the Christian Democratic CDS-PP Party.
The election was notable because after votes from the Portuguese diaspora came in subsequent to the election, the far-right populist party Chega! surged ahead to become the second largest party in the Portuguese parliament with 60 MPs. AD garnered 91 while the PS socialists have got 58.
This, the XXVth Constitutional Government since the Revolution of 1974 restored democracy to Portugal, will have a total of 16 ministries with the various ministers officially sworn in yesterday (Thursday, June 5), 18 days after the General Election.
The new secretaries of State (pictured), whose names were announced on Thursday evening, were sworn in today (Friday, June 9).
This will be the fourth executive government that the country’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, will swear in – and the second of the AD coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which he previously headed. None of the three previous governments completed their term in office.
Sources: ECO and the Portugal Resident
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