DATELINE LISBON: Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has announced decisions to dissolve the Parliament and hold new general elections on January 30, 2022. The President made the statement in November in his national televised speech, in a bid to solve the political crisis after the 2022 State Budget of the current Socialist Party (PS)’s government was rejected by the Parliament late October.

Mr Rebelo de Sousa has threatened before the parliamentary debate that he would dissolve the Parliament and call for early elections if the budget is rejected, Xinhua news agency reported. The Constitution of Portugal provides that early elections should take place within 60 days of dissolving the Parliament. The political crisis, the first of its kind for a current government since the country entered a democracy in 1974, was caused by the disagreement between the ruling Socialist Party (PS) and its traditional ally Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Left Bloc.