Portugal’s centre-right Democratic Alliance Party has claimed victory by a slim margin in the country’s general election, concluding eight years of Socialist Party rule.
The Democratic Alliance coalition’s success in the snap election on Sunday saw its leader. Luis Montenegro, declare that “The Portuguese people have spoken,” adding: “They want a different government, different policies, renewed parties and dialogue among their leaders…And that’s what we are prepared to offer.”
The electoral platform is made up of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) along with two smaller conservative parties, narrowly finishing first and defeating its socialist rivals in the election.
The election, in which no party secured a majority of seats in Parliament, saw both main parties – PSD and the Socialist Party (PS) polling roughly 29% of the vote. However, it was the right-wing Chega party which saw the biggest surge, securing 18 per cent of the vote, and 48 seats in the 230-seat parliament just five years after it entered Portuguese politics. It makes it the country’s third largest political force. The result quadruples its seat count, from 12 to 48.
Chega, meaning ‘Enough’ was formed in 2019 by former football pundit André Ventura, as a national conservative, right-wing party. It is nationally conservative as well as socially conservative, and describes itself as a strong proponent of Western civilisation. Its election campaign had focused on an anti-establishment message, and promised to rid the country of corruption, while expressing hostility to “excessive” immigration.
With 99 per cent of votes counted, it emerged on Monday morning that the Democratic Alliance had secured 79 seats, the Socialists 77, and Chega, 48, while a group of smaller parties picked up the remainder.
Montenegro, of the Democratic Alliance, addressed supporters early on Monday morning, saying that his expectation was that “PS and Chega will not form a negative alliance to prevent the government that the Portuguese wanted.”
He said he did not expect the Socialists to “adhere to our government’s proposals,” but that he hoped they would “respect the will of the Portuguese people.”
During his concession speech on Sunday, leader of the Socialist Party Pedro Nuno Santos said that the combined size of the centre right and far right had made a left-wing government in Portugal impossible looking to the near future.
“Everything indicates that the Socialist Party did not win the election,”. Nuno Santos said at a news conference. The Social Democratic Party, the main party within the Democratic Alliance, now looks set to form a government. Social Democratic leader Luís Montenegro told the news conference: “It seems undeniable that the Democratic Alliance won the elections and that the Socialists lost.”
Europe’s Social Democrats now govern in just four out of the EU’s 27 member states.
Ventura, responding to his party’s success, simply posted a “thank you” to the people of Portugal on social media:
— André Ventura (@AndreCVentura) March 11, 2024
Late on Sunday, Ventura commented: “Chega asked to become the centrepiece of the political system and it achieved that result. We want to give Portugal a stable government.”
VOX, the national conservative party in Spain, posted a statement congratulating Chega on the election result.
“Congratulations to our friends and allies at @PartidoCHEGA for the extraordinary result achieved in the Portuguese elections,” VOX said.
“Patriots make their way in defence of the freedom and sovereignty of nations against corrupt socialism and outdated bipartisanship.”
¡Enhorabuena a nuestros amigos y aliados de @PartidoCHEGA por el extraordinario resultado logrado en las elecciones de Portugal!
Los patriotas se abren camino en defensa de la libertad y la soberanía de las naciones frente al socialismo corrupto y el bipartidismo caduco.… https://t.co/wUqQQtqpU4 pic.twitter.com/Kv5qRUkjja
— VOX 🇪🇸 (@vox_es) March 10, 2024
The election result represented the worst result for Portugal’s Socialist Party since 2011, and had been triggered by the resignation of former socialist leader and Prime Minister, António Costa, in November, amid a corruption investigation involving his chief of staff.
The country’s shift to the right follows projections that the right will make inroads in the June European Parliament election, with polling showing a predicted shift that could dramatically alter the landscape of the European Parliament.
A poll for the European Council in January predicted that the right-wing Identity and Democracy faction could gain big, gaining as many as 40 seats to become the European Parliaments’ third-largest group. The right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) also look set to make gains.
Polling has, however, suggested that the current pro-European forces such as the European People’s Party, Socialists and Democrats, and Renew Europe could still manage to form a majority in the Parliament come June.
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The writing was on the wall, the far left pushed too far. Great results. There is hope for Ireland yet.
Hopefully something like this will happen in Ireland. I am sick of this woke government and their insane policies on everything, immigration, healthcare and the green agenda. Hopefully radical change will come.
I think that the pendulum had swung way too much to the left, in fact so far left that ordinary people with no political alignment were being described as far right. The media , the government parties, the opposition, the NGOs all of the above have come out and described the population at large as far right. In a sense they have a point, a narrow-minded and poorly thought out point but as they are so far to the left that anyone at all with a different opinion seems to their deluded minds to be far right.
We are seeing now a reaction and this result in Portugal and our result in the referendum would be another indication of this. There is the danger of course that the weight of the pendulum is so great and the momentum so powerful that it may swing swiftly pass the middle ground where it should settle and go to the other extreme.
The globalist companies and their lackies in real power don’t care where it (the pendulum) ends up, far right, far left it is all the same to them. What they fear is that it will settle in the middle and they will loose the advantage of divide and conquer.
Let us disappoint them and start to look ourselves to that middle ground of sound economic and family orientated policies.
I dont get how the French have not swung right yet.Hopefully they will get sense,its a awful dump in France now. 6 million Muslims.
The Germans will turn right very quickly if their economy doesnt take off.Bavaria is such a beautiful place and hopefully the AFD get stronger there.Angela Merkel was a bit like Alex Ferguson who had success and then left the place in a shambles full of rapefugees and fakeugees.
By 2030 the European Parliament will be right leaning and we will see what can be reversed and how far we can reverse decades of bad policy.
The EU is a trading block and should go back to its grass roots.It is not a army or asylum centerBy the way,Ukraine is not in the EU and people need to be reminded about that..
Ferguson is still in Man U. Has never left, just stepped back due to age:)
That explains it 😄
Go to Lisbon and see why this has occurred – streets filled with migrants and drug dealing. Only surprise is the vote is that it took them so long.
Hermann Kelly is our Andre Ventura, nearly every media outlet ignores the Irish Freedom Party including Gript.
The Universities are the poison well where this ideology springs from. Their aim is to destroy the structure of society. It is dressed up as progressive so the useful idiots like Martin, Varadkar will follow the plan. The Mainstream media and state propaganda organisation RTE are their allies.
There is definitely a need to take a serious look at how the third level education budget is being squandered. There was a time when Universities and other third level institutions turned out people with real degrees and qualifications which equipped them to provide useful services to society. Now an ever increasing proportion of the third level budget is squandered on what I call ‘candy floss courses’ such as women’s studies, queer studies, black studies, Traveller studies etc. These so-called graduates are then given useless jobs in the NGOs at a further cost to the taxpayer.
They know the writing on the wall. Preemptive attacks on european farmers, supply chains and general normal economic activities will mean when we do get our hands back on our sovereignty, we will inherit their mess. They trying to scuttle the ship and bring us all down. We need a preemptive of our own, and fast.