Portugal’s left-wing opposition parties ousted the country’s centre-right minority Government on Tuesday through a parliamentary vote, reported multiple media outlets, including Portuguese broadcaster Rádio Renascença.

The Government led by Prime-Minister Pedro Passos Coelho had been sworn in fewer than two weeks ago.

Mr Passos Coelho – who had also held power before a general election on October 4 – was again leading a centre-right coalition of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the conservative Popular Party (CDS-PP). The coalition won the election, but lost the absolute majority it had held in the nation’s 230-seat Parliament.

Portugal’s main opposition party, the Socialist Party (PS) – which won the second-largest share of the popular vote in the October poll –, presented on Tuesday a motion rejecting the new Government’s programme.

The motion was approved with 123 votes in favour. Every single opposition legislator voted ‘yes’; namely from the PS, the Left Block (BE) party, the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), the ‘Ecological Party – “The Greens”’ (PEV) and the People, Animals and Nature (PAN) party. The 107 legislators from the centre-right PSD and the CDS-PP ruling parties all voted against the motion.

A few days before the vote on the motion, the PS, the BE and the PCP announced they had between them forged agreements that would make an alternative left-wing Government possible.

The Portuguese Constitution states that Parliamentary approval of a motion rejecting a government’s programme is cause for dismissal of that administration. The Constitution also states such a dismissed administration is to stay in post – strictly for the purpose of dealing with key matters of state – until the President appoints a new Government, Portuguese news agency Lusa reported.

Portugal’s economy grew 0.9 percent last year, after contracting for three consecutive years. Portugal’s gross domestic product expanded by 1.5 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2015.

In May 2014 Portugal exited a three-year bailout programme organised by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.