Exit polls released after polling stations closed on Sunday showed a clear victory for the centre-right. However, as the tally progressed, the official results reflected the photo finish. One reason for this was the extraordinary inroads of the far right. By making concessions, the Socialist Party, which has been in power since 2015, appears to have avoided the possibility of the centre-right breaking its pledge not to form a coalition government with Chega. Instead, the Social Democrats appeared poised to form a minority government with support from the fiscally conservative party that came in fourth place.
The Socialist Party “did not win the election. It will lead the opposition,” Socialist Party leader and prime ministerial candidate Pedro Nuno Santos told supporters in Lisbon early Monday. He said an analysis of the outstanding votes favors a center-right victory.
Nevertheless, Chega was widely seen as the main beneficiary of the night, putting pressure on the mainstream right to include Chega in the new conservative government. Combined with another conservative party that came in fourth place, centre-right and far-right parties are said to have collectively received nearly 52 per cent of the vote.
“What the Portuguese gave us was [conservatives] A majority,” Chega chief Andre Ventura told reporters in Lisbon. “If we don't form a government, we become irresponsible.”
Portugal's election has been closely watched on both sides of the Atlantic all year long, with former US President Donald Trump seeking to retake the White House and far-right parties gaining strong support in countries including France, Austria and Germany.
“Portugal is Europe's election year laboratory,” said Antonio Costa Pinto, a political expert at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon.
Voters in Portugal, a country of 10.3 million people, are looking for an antidote to corruption scandals, a housing crisis, high inflation and low wages. The election comes four months after the Socialist Party government collapsed amid an influence-spreading investigation, and the centre-right Social Democratic Party faces a financial scandal that forced the resignation of two party leaders. Ta.
The far-right Chega Party's English word “enough'' attracted attention. The campaign drew inspiration from Trump, Brazil's former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and French nationalist Marine Le Pen, among others. Chega has gained support among young voters through social media.
Voters who supported Chega responded to the party's anti-corruption message and its claims that Portugal was being overrun by immigrants committing more crimes, despite a lack of evidence. The party is led by Mr. Ventura, a 41-year-old former sportscaster with a huge influence on social media. Fact-checking agencies claim he has routinely spread misinformation.
“I want more control over immigration to admit more qualified immigrants,” said Rui Silva, 31, a Chega voter who lives in Lisbon's western district. “It's unfair for them to take advantage of our national health system and take advantage of everything we have.”
Sunday's vote came in the wake of the collapse of the Socialist government of António Costa, an elder statesman on Europe's left who was arrested in November amid an investigation into allegations of corruption in his handling of lithium mines and hydrogen projects. resigned as prime minister. Mr. Costa is not affiliated with Costa Pinto at the University of Lisbon, but he has not been charged with any crime.
Nuno Santos, who replaced Costa as leader of the Socialist Party, resigned as infrastructure minister at the end of 2022 due to the scandal surrounding Portugal's national airline TAP.
Social Democratic leader Luis Montenegro has begun to emulate some of Chega's hardline stances on immigration. Mr. Ventura, meanwhile, has pledged to ease some of his most extreme platform measures, such as chemical castration of some sex offenders, to join a broader right-wing coalition. But Montenegro has repeatedly ruled out a governance agreement with Chega.
Montenegro's president told supporters last week that “no means no,” reiterating his long-standing position of rejecting a coalition agreement with Chega.
Portugal has had several minority governments since the fall of a right-wing dictatorship in 1974 and a short-lived military regime following a coup. But like many Western countries, the country could enter a new era of polarization and tougher politics.
The Socialist Party has previously said it would respect a centre-right minority government to avoid the possibility of a broader right-wing coalition including Chega. But Montenegro refused to honor the promise. The Socialist Party pledged early Monday not to oppose the formation of a centre-right minority government, but it was unclear how long it would let this stand.
But since the beginning of the campaign, much of it has been focused on stopping Chega's rise.
Portugal's largest newspaper Espresso reported that President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will “do whatever it takes” to avoid Chega joining the next government. Despite his centre-right background, this fact raised eyebrows in a country where the president serves as the ceremonial head of state.
Filipe Alexandre, 60, a Socialist Party voter in western Lisbon, said, “Chega is a party that has an anti-democratic and anti-constitutional stance.'' “I don’t think they should be allowed in the game of democracy either.”
