Portugal’s caretaker government announced plans on Saturday to expel about 18,000 foreigners living in the country without legal permits or authorisation.
António Leitão Amaro, Minister of the Presidency, said the centre-right government will issue approximately 18,000 notifications to illegal migrants asking them to leave.
According to Amaro, officials will begin next week by asking some 4,500 undocumented migrants to leave voluntarily within 20 days.
The announcement comes in the build-up to the country's early general election, scheduled to be held on 18 May.
Last week, Amaro was quoted in the local press as saying that “Portugal needs to review its deportation system, which doesn’t work."
"It is important to realise that Portugal is one of the three countries in Europe that executes the fewest deportations of people who ordered to leave for violating the rules, including for security reasons,” he said.
This month's snap ballot was called in March by Prime Minister Luis Montenegro after his minority government, led by his conservative Social Democratic Party, lost a confidence vote in Parliament and stood down.
What led to the government's collapse?
Montenegro, who took power less than a year ago, was accused of a potential conflict of interest regarding a family law firm.
The firm was alleged to have received payments from a company with a major gambling concession granted by the government.
To “dispel uncertainty,” Montenegro called for snap elections. Instead, opposition parties teamed up to topple him.
His government, a two-party alliance, was in power for less than a year and had just 80 seats in the current 230-seat legislature.
An overwhelming majority of opposition lawmakers, led by the centre-left Socialists and Chega, which together hold 128 seats, vowed to vote against it and followed through.
The upcoming poll pitches the country of 10.6 million people into months of political uncertainty, just as it is in the process of investing more than €22 billion in EU development funds to retool its economy.
Political analysts have also noted with concern the rising European tide of populism in the country, with the far-right Chega party surging into third place in last year’s election.
Since transitioning to democracy in the wake of the 1974 Carnation Revolution, which ended a four-decade dictatorship, Portugal has not experienced political turmoil as it is seeing now.
The demise of the minority government in March marks the worst spell of political instability in 50 years of the country's democracy.
