Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio began moves Tuesday to dissolve Parliament and call an election after deciding Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes could no longer continue in the job. The move came in the wake of a top minister’s resignation, budget problems, poor polls, a negative assessment of the country’s economic outlook from a credit rating agency, and accusations of government interference with the media.

“The president informed me of his decision to start the steps leading to a dissolution of parliament,” Santana Lopes said after a 40-minute meeting with Sampaio. A presidential palace source said Sampaio believed Santana Lopes lacked “the indispensable political conditions” needed to lead the nation of 10 million people. An election is likely in February 2005 even though Santana Lopes, who became prime minister four months ago when his predecessor Jose Durao Barroso became head of the European Commission, said there were “no reasons for this dissolution.”

Santana Lopes’s Social Democrats badly trail the opposition Socialists in opinion polls. The Socialists, headed by the telegenic Jose Socrates, were backed by almost half of voters compared with 32.4 percent for the Social Democrats in a Marktest poll released Friday.

When Barroso quit, rival party leaders called at the time for elections. Sampaio let Santana Lopes take over the government, but warned that he must maintain stability in such areas as foreign affairs and finances. The prospect of elections raises questions about the future of reforms launched by Barroso to streamline the economy. They include pension system changes and measures to fight tax fraud.

The latest crisis came to a head with the resignation of sports minister Henrique Chaves Sunday after only four days in office. He cited a “serious inversion of loyalty and truth” by the prime minister. Chaves’s resignation had prompted Sampaio to act, the presidential source said.

Socialists work on program

Socrates took control of the Socialists only two months ago and the party is still trying to put together a program, said Carlos Caceres Monteiro, editor of Visao, Portugal’s top-selling newsmagazine. “Socrates is still a politician under construction,” he told private TSF radio.

Sampaio, whose constitutional powers include dissolving parliament and naming a prime minister, said in a statement he would meet leaders of parties in parliament and the advisory Council of State to discuss the situation. Santana Lopes’s Social Democrats and their rightist allies in the Popular Party hold 119 seats in the 230-seat parliament. The next elections had been scheduled for 2006. The Social Democrats would be hard pressed to come up with an alternative prime minister to Santana Lopes since he was affirmed as party leader only this month. Questions about interference in the media have also beset the government. Last month a commentator at the TVI television network who criticized the government resigned following a complaint from a minister.

Ian SIMPSON