Portuguese Socialists' Abstention Unlocks Toll Cuts, VAT Relief & Tuition Freeze

The morning after Parliament approved the State Budget for 2026, many Portuguese woke to a familiar political ritual: parties trading barbs while quietly sharing the spoils. At the centre of the latest exchange stands Communist leader Paulo Raimundo, who accused Iniciativa Liberal and Chega of owing a “debt of gratitude” to the Socialist Party for an abstention that smoothed the Budget’s passage.

A pointed jab in the budget debate

Raimundo’s remark, delivered with characteristic irony in Beja over the weekend, revolved around the Socialist decision to sit out the final vote. By withholding its 86 seats, the PS ensured the minority centre-right government’s accounts made it through, even as IL and Chega loudly voted against. According to the Communist chief, the abstention offered those two smaller parties the luxury of rejection without consequence, letting them appear tough on spending while secretly welcoming measures they "are deeply in agreement with".

How a single abstention rewrote the arithmetic

In the 230-seat Assembly, a Budget falls if 116 deputies reject it. The governing Aliança Democrática commands only 91 dependable votes. PS neutrality therefore reduced the bar, allowing the plan to clear despite 32 negative ballots from Chega and IL combined. The episode revives a recurring theme of the current legislature: PS as king-maker, able to tilt decisions either way by shifting from opposition to silent facilitator.

‘Calimeros’ and calculated opposition

By labelling IL and Chega “calimeros” – a Portuguese slang for perpetual complainers – Raimundo suggested both parties prize television sound bites over parliamentary outcome. The insult stings because each has attacked the Budget’s tax assumptions while privately conceding, as several back-bench conversations confirm, that key line items align with their own liberal or nationalist agendas: lighter corporate levies for start-ups prized by IL, and higher interior security funding touted by Chega.

Tactical convergences on specific dossiers

This is not the first time ideological foes have discovered common ground. Over the last three sessions, Socialists joined Chega to scrap tolls on the A2 and A6, and aligned with IL to move the long-awaited Central Administrative Court to Castelo Branco. Even a controversial €200 M reimbursement for banks advanced after Socialists and Chega softened their stance during committee markup. These votes illustrate how, beneath public sparring, ad-hoc alliances criss-cross the hemicycle whenever constituency interests overlap.

Reading the chessboard ahead of 2026

Political scientists at ISCTE note that Raimundo’s broadside is also a bid to re-energise a left fractured since the 2024 general election. The Communists hope to brand PS as an enabler of right-wing economics, pressuring Socialist voters who feel uneasy about deals with Chega, a party often criticised for anti-immigrant rhetoric. Conversely, Liberal strategists believe portraying PS as fiscally irresponsible bolsters their pitch to urban professionals. The Budget episode, then, is less about 2025 accounting and more about positioning before municipal races and the next European ballot.

What it means for households from Braga to Faro

Behind the theatre, the approved document freezes university tuition, widens toll exemptions, and extends the reduced 6 % VAT band on electricity. Those provisions will matter more to families than speeches about procedural debts. Still, the ability of one abstention to decide billions of euros highlights how fragmented Portugal’s political map has become — and why citizens may see similar showdowns whenever crucial bills land on the Assembly’s green benches.