| Welcome to the weekend issue of Brussels Edition, Bloomberg's daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union. Join us on Saturdays for deeper dives from our bureaus across Europe. LISBON — While the rest of Europe is grappling with how to keep up with President Donald Trump's abrupt shifts to US policies, Portugal is once again consumed by domestic political struggles. Parliament met in Lisbon for a final time this week before it was dissolved ahead of the country's third snap election in just over three years. "It's as if we're in a car race in which the Portuguese car pulls into the pits every lap to change tires," said Pedro Castro e Almeida, the head of Banco Santander's Portuguese unit. The center-right minority government was toppled by parliament on March 11 after losing a confidence vote that Prime Minister Luis Montenegro had requested himself after serving for one year. The collapse may delay some key decisions, including a plan to privatize state-owned airline TAP.  Portugal's outgoing Prime Minister Luis Montenegro talks to journalists in Belem Presidential Palace on March 13. Photographer: Horacio Villalobos/Corbis News President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who called the snap election for May 18, said nobody wanted this early vote. Both opposition Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos and Montenegro say they're in favor of political stability, and have tried to avoid being blamed for causing another early election. They blame each other. The premier requested the confidence vote the week before he was ousted, saying he wanted to clarify whether his government had the support to carry out its program. He'd been struggling to put an end to speculation about potential conflicts of interest related to a company owned by his family, something likely to come up again during the campaign. The Socialists, who had helped the government's budget pass in November but always warned they wouldn't back confidence motions, and far-right party Chega both voted against the government. Montenegro, 52, plans to seek reelection. It will likely be a close race again against Socialist leader Santos, 47, who is often linked to the leftmost wing of his party, according to recent opinion polls. None of the surveys indicate the ruling coalition or the Socialists will be able to get a majority in parliament on their own.  Pedro Nuno Santos, Secretary General of the Socialist Party. Photographer: SOPA Images/LightRocket Minority governments in Portugal have tended to be short-lived: In 50 years of democracy, only two have survived a full four-year term. The Socialists and Montenegro's center-right PSD party, the senior partner in the AD coalition, have dominated politics over those five decades. Still, new parties have been formed and are challenging the two main competing centrist groups. Chega has emerged as a new force, quadrupling its number of seats in parliament in the last early election in March 2024. While Montenegro could have secured majority support in parliament by forging a deal with the far-right party, he ruled out an agreement to get its backing. Andre Ventura, a former tax inspector who leads Chega, has appealed to a growing number of disgruntled voters by blaming successive center-left and center-right governments for what he says is systemic corruption in Portugal. Portugal may just be catching up with other European democracies when it comes to fragmentation of party politics and the surge in far-right support. "Portugal was one of the last to resist the emergence of these radical right-wing populist forces, but we are also no longer the exception," said Isabel David, an associate professor at the Institute of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Lisbon. — Joao Lima, Lisbon bureau chief | 
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