(13 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lisbon – 13 March 2025
1. Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa entering room
2. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Portuguese President:
“To the President of the Republic, the first one to be interested in stability and who has done everything in his power to avoid elections, there was no other option than to announce the dissolution of Parliament and the call for elections on the 18th of May of 2025, the preferred date by the majority of the parties.”
3. Close of Portuguese and EU flags
4. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Portuguese President:
“There must be an electoral debate that is clear and enlightening, but serene, dignified, of high standards, tolerant, respecting of differences and of pluralism, a debate that can strengthen democracy and not weaken it, a debate that does not open even more the door to experiences that one knows how they start and how they finish.”
5. Close of camera
6. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Portuguese President:
"(a debate) that can strengthen democracy and its capacity to face off and overcome crises, that only a democracy can do, not a dictatorship. That can strengthen Portugal.”
(DE SOUSA LEAVING AFTER ADDRESS)
7. Close of Portuguese coat of arms
STORYLINE:
Portugal will hold an early general election on May 18, the country’s president announced Thursday, two days after a minority government lost a confidence vote in parliament and stood down.
President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who has no executive power but can dissolve parliament and call elections, described the government’s collapse as a shock that was neither "expected nor wanted.”
In a televised address to the nation, he urged voters to participate actively in the European Union country’s third general election in three years, saying the continent faces stiff challenges to its security and economy that require political stability.
The center-right government’s fall on Tuesday amid questions about the prime minister’s conduct brought the worst bout of political instability since Portugal adopted a democratic system more than 50 years ago in the wake of the 1974 Carnation Revolution, which ended a four-decade dictatorship.
Portugal, which has a population of around 10.6 million people, has had a series of minority governments in recent years as the traditional rivals for power, the center-right Social Democratic Party and the center-left Socialists, lost votes to growing smaller parties.
The minority governments have been unable to build compromises that might ensure an administration completes its constitutional four-year term without opposition parties teaming up to block its policy proposals and bring it down.
The ballot deepens political uncertainty just as Portugal is in the process of investing more than 22 billion euros ($24 billion) in EU development funds.
Voter discontent with a return to the polls could bring dividends for the far-right populist party Chega (Enough), which has fed off frustration with the two mainstream parties.
Portugal has been caught up in the rising European tide of populism, with Chega surging into third place in last year’s election.
AP Video shot by Helena Alves
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