Both in the scenario of an agreement to make the State Budget viable and in another in which the Government and the PS do not understand each other, with the risk of a political crisis, analysts see the leaders trying to justify themselves to voters.
Trenches dug, walls torn down. The “nervousness” surrounding the negotiations for the State Budget for 2025 (OE2025) is once again forcing the Prime Minister and the Secretary General of the Socialist Party to wrestle once again, in a showdown to see who can escape responsibility for the budget proposal being rejected and for a political crisis , thus securing their electorate in the event of early elections.
The analysis is from political scientists consulted by ECO so that, on the other hand, if there is an agreement to implement the State Budget, Luís Montenegro and Pedro Nuno Santos will have to justify themselves to their voters . Always showing themselves to be combative, even if, in the end, they end up signing a pact, consider experts Marina Costa Lobo, Paula Espírito Santo and José Adelino Maltez.
But what has disturbed the hustle and bustle of the last two days? Timings for scheduling meetings; the condition imposed by Pedro Nuno Santos to make this meeting public in advance, which Luís Montenegro rejected; and also the “discreet” meetings this Monday with André Ventura and Rui Rocha . Result: instead of having received the leader of the PS on September 18, the head of the Government will only meet with Pedro Nuno Santos next Friday, the 27th. Four days after Montenegro had already received, in S. Bento, the presidents of Chega and Iniciativa Liberal.
The exchange of statements that began on Sunday night and continued into Monday exposed the “nervousness” on both sides, notes Marina Costa Lobo, PhD in Political Science and senior researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL). “There is a succession of cases and episodes that demonstrate some nervousness on both sides. Neither wants to date, but they need it because neither wants elections,” concludes the political scientist.
After an initial note from the PS informing that it was available to meet on the 18th, the Prime Minister's office reacted: “The meeting was scheduled for the 18th , and the Prime Minister reiterated his availability to hold the meeting, despite having cancelled all other commitments on the agenda for this week, due to the focus needed to monitor the fire situation. However, the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party cancelled this meeting” , according to the statement from the Prime Minister's office, issued on Sunday evening.
In the same letter, the Government criticized the “recurrent unavailability of the PS secretary general” to meet, revealing that it has been trying to schedule a meeting since September 4th.
At the end of the same note, Luís Montenegro also made a point of stressing that “this explanation aims to put an end to speculation and provide proper clarification to the Portuguese people who are wondering about the impasse in which the dialogue between the Government and the main opposition party finds itself, hoping that it will be overcome as soon as possible.
In a counterattack, the PS office denied the Prime Minister's statement, revealing that it was "the Government that backed out of scheduling the meeting when the PS demanded that it be given prior public notice" . "The PS is not available to continue to fuel these childish and sterile discussions about managing agendas in the public square , when the Portuguese are struggling daily with serious problems that remain unresolved. This is what an adult and responsible Government should be focused on at this moment", he concluded.
For Marina Costa Lobo, “the President’s pressure to force an agreement between leaders” has also been a determining factor in this “nervousness”. “Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa called elections in 2022, when a budget from the PS Government was not approved. The result was that the Portuguese people punished” above all those who were left with the burden of “having contributed most to the instability, namely the BE and the PCP”, she points out. The researcher believes that “this electoral punishment is present in the minds of leaders who try to “look good in the photo” and exempt themselves from responsibility , whether in a possible election or in an agreement on the right, which needs to be legitimized, blaming the PS for a lack of willingness to negotiate”.
More than “a clash of personalities”, Paula 
Espírito Santo believes that the “very reactive positions on both sides” are indicative of “a difficult balance of power in the Assembly of the Republic”. “This is, above all, a strategy to give the impression of strength to its voters. The PS needs this proof of life and the Prime Minister, with the reins of the Executive, cannot fail to have a position of preponderance” , analyses the researcher from the Institute of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ISCSP).
For this reason, Luís Montenegro “is not willing to give in to arguments like that of the PS, which wanted the meeting to be announced in advance” , he stresses. On the other hand, “the Government has had, from the beginning, a position of little humility , although it has always defended the openness to dialogue, but then there is no implementation”, he points out.
For José Adelino Maltez, this is “almost a childish game”. “Luís Montenegro and Pedro Nuno Santos know what they want, but they don’t say it and then they make these displays of mischief to attract the attention of their electorate” , says the specialist with a PhD in Political Science.
Maltez sees “this game or this strategy” as a test for his electorate. “The government and the PS conduct internal surveys and know which way the voters lean and, based on this information, they design different tactics” , he stresses.
Despite the tug of war between Montenegro and Pedro Nuno Santos, both continue to reiterate their full availability to negotiate the 2025 State Budget . The Prime Minister and leader of the PSD reiterated this Monday night, at the Social Democratic National Council, that “the PSD and the Government will always have their doors open” to negotiate.
At the end of his speech, he supported the pressure from the President of the Republic: “It seems absolutely unavoidable to me that the interpretation of the national interest and the collective interest must lead to the approval of the State Budget for 2025. And, by way of conclusion, I express a thought that the President has made very clear to Portuguese society. We are confident in the approval of the State Budget because we are aware that the twelfths are not a solution”.