The importance of being responsible: parliamentary opposition behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal

During the COVID-19 pandemic, opposition parties found themselves in a dilemma: either to cooperate with the government for the nation’s sake or to take advantage of the situation for political purposes. However, the extant research has not yet fully uncovered the patterns of opposition behaviour during this recent and rather intense crisis. In this article, we examine the case of Portugal, exploring possible differences between opposition parties on this regard and taking into consideration the role of time and focus of COVID-19-related legislation. We do so by investigating the behaviour of opposition parties in parliament, through an analysis of their voting behaviour, enriched by party leader statements, between March 2020 and January 2022. Our results show a different pattern to the right of the incumbent, with the main opposition party being more collaborative (framing its behaviour as responsible and patriotic) than the newer right-wing opposition parties, both populist and not populist. Pandemic gravity and focus of the legislation under vote are also relevant factors of opposition behaviour.