Iniciativa Liberal Drops Sintra Councillor over Chega Deal, €51M Housing Budget in Limbo

The council chambers in Sintra woke up to an unexpected quake: Iniciativa Liberal has severed ties with one of its own, stripping councillor Eunice Baeta of the party banner and underscoring an uncompromising veto on any power-sharing arrangement with Chega. For residents following the fragile balance of Portuguese local politics, the move signals fresh turbulence just as negotiations for municipal portfolios were edging toward completion.

Liberal red line meets Sintra realpolitik

The break was triggered when Baeta accepted an invitation to join an executive line-up that also features Chega representatives, openly defying a 21 October directive approved by the party’s National Executive Committee. That resolution, passed with only one dissenting vote, framed cooperation with Chega as a boundary that “cannot be crossed”. By agreeing to the deal orchestrated by the PSD-led coalition, Baeta placed herself on the wrong side of a party that sells itself as the voice of classical individual liberty, market openness and institutional moderation. Within hours, Mariana Leitão—the Liberal leader—issued a curt statement declaring the councillor’s mandate “no longer exercised on behalf of Iniciativa Liberal,” a phrase that effectively turns Baeta into an independent overnight.

Behind the curtain: why Sintra matters beyond Sintra

Sintra’s town hall may sit just outside Lisbon’s commuter belt, yet the municipality carries national symbolism. It is the second-most populous concelho in Portugal and often acts as a bellwether for suburban discontent. An alliance that threads PSD, IL, PAN and Chega into the same governing fabric would have offered the first visible test of a broader right-wing pact many analysts see forming ahead of the 2026 legislative fight. By pulling the plug, the Liberals have signalled to both supporters and sceptics that they will not relax their cordon sanitaire around a party they label “populist” and “authoritarian.” The decision also complicates any future arithmetic should the national centre-right need Liberal votes to pass a budget without courting Chega’s parliamentary caucus.

Internal backlash and the cost of dissent

Party insiders describe the episode as a stress-test of discipline. Eunice Baeta has now resigned from her seat on the IL Executive Committee, conceding that “conditions of political trust” no longer exist. Yet she has not surrendered her actual council mandate, prompting debate about whether elected officials should vacate office when they lose partisan backing. The scenario echoes previous clashes in Oeiras in 2023 and Coimbra in 2024, where Liberal activists argued that voters cast ballots for a slate marketed under the IL logo, not for personal brands. Legal scholars point out that Portugal’s local government law does not force a councillor to resign after a party rupture, leaving Baeta free to keep her €2,800 monthly stipend and voting rights—though without the logistical and media support a party machine provides.

Immediate fallout inside the town hall

With the Liberals stepping away, the PSD-PAN-Chega configuration still commands a thin majority of seven out of thirteen seats, enough to run the executive—but losing Baeta’s liberal portfolio means reorganising urban planning and digital-innovation duties she previously oversaw. Observers expect those responsibilities to migrate to PSD councillor Pedro Valadares, while Chega’s lone seat could gain a secondary vice-presidency, further spotlighting a party that only debuted in local power four years ago. For Sintra residents, the reshuffle risks delaying approval of the 2026 municipal budget, which already pencilled in €42 M for affordable housing near Meleças railway station and a €9 M upgrade to the IC19 bypass.

A ripple effect felt from Vila Real to Faro

The standoff exposes a wider strategic dilemma on the Portuguese right. PSD leader Luís Montenegro continues to argue that local authorities must be free to broker deals “case by case,” while the Liberals insist that any normalisation of Chega weakens democratic guardrails. That thesis finds some backing in recent polling: 46 % of metropolitan Lisbon voters told Eurosondagem last month they would oppose a regional government that included the far right. Conversely, the same survey shows Chega sitting at 18 % nationwide, enough to force mainstream parties either to collaborate or to stitch together unstable minorities. By doubling down on their veto, the Liberals hope to position themselves as a principled partner for centrist voters disillusioned with the PS yet wary of the far-right surge.

Where does it leave the voters?

For now, Sintra’s Liberal electorate—roughly 9,300 ballots cast in the 2025 local race—finds itself without formal representation inside the executive. Opposition parties are already framing the episode as evidence that IL prefers ideological purity over pragmatic governance. Yet Liberal strategists counter that long-term credibility trumps short-term power: entering an administration alongside Chega would, they argue, make it harder to chastise the far right when national issues such as immigration, civil-rights legislation or school-curricula reforms dominate the headlines. The coming weeks will reveal whether voters reward that stand in the municipal assembly or whether, fatigued by political theatre, they drift toward other banners in the 2026 European and legislative contests.

What is clear is that the Sintra rift has turned a local personnel dispute into a country-wide conversation about the very architecture of coalition-building in Portugal’s young democracy, raising a question that will echo well beyond the palace-lined hillsides of the Serra de Sintra: is power worth the price of crossing one’s own red lines?