Far right surges in Portugal as moderate conservatives win election

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The far-right Chega party has smashed Portugal’s two-party duopoly by riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to tie for second place in a parliamentary election won by the governing centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD).

André Ventura, Chega’s populist leader, secured a record share of the vote and was neck and neck with the Socialist party in the number of elected lawmakers early on Monday, with results in from 226 of 230 parliamentary seats.

The result means Portugal joins a list of western European countries where far-right parties are either the second-biggest political force or close to it, including Germany, Sweden, Finland and Belgium. In the Netherlands, the far-right party of Geert Wilders won an election in 2023.

“Today, we can confidently announce that the two-party system in Portugal has come to an end” Ventura said as he declared that “Chega has become the second-largest political party”.

But the result is unlikely to give him a taste of power. Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, a moderate conservative, has refused to do any deals with Chega.

In a snap election precipitated by conflict-of-interest allegations against the prime minister, Montenegro’s AD performed better than it did in the last vote 14 months ago, but again fell short of a parliamentary majority, meaning he is likely to form another minority government.

Chega’s surge means it will have more clout and will press the AD to move further to the right. Ventura, who has been labelled a xenophobe by opponents, declared in the campaign that “Portugal is flooded with illegal immigration and corruption”.

A former trainee priest and football pundit, Ventura increased his party’s share to 22.6 per cent from 18 per cent in the last election in March 2024.

The governing AD’s vote rose by 3.4 percentage points to 32.1 per cent, a sign it was not hurt by the scandal over Montenegro, whose government collapsed when he lost a confidence vote over his alleged failure to divest a stake in a business he founded.

Although the Socialist party won a slightly higher share of the vote than Chega, its leader Pedro Nuno Santos resigned, having overseen its worst electoral performance since 1987. The Socialists tied with Ventura’s party on 58 parliamentary seats, while the AD won 86.

The results of four undeclared seats, whose electors are Portuguese living overseas, will not be known until later this week. In 2024, Chega won two of those seats while the Socialists won one.

The rise of Chega, founded in 2019, has been fuelled by public unease over immigration in a country of 10mn where the foreign-born population has jumped to 15 per cent, from 4 per cent in 2017.

In an effort to stem the rise of Chega, Montenegro’s government ended what it called the “open doors” immigration policy of the previous Socialist government and introduced a tougher “regulated and humane” approach.

Marina Costa Lobo, director of Lisbon’s Institute of Social Sciences, said Chega gained in elections in 2022 and 2024 by wooing voters from the centre-right and mobilising people who had previously abstained, but this time, it also did well in traditionally left-leaning areas.

“The Socialists had managed to retain an electorate in 2024 that was less educated and lower income. These groups in other European countries have tended to vote for the far right,” she said. “This time, it seems that a considerable number of these voters may have shifted to Chega.”

Montenegro was able to take office last year because the Socialist party abstained from a parliamentary vote on the formation of a government — something he will need it to do again to secure a new term.

Socialist leader Santos said he would leave his successor to decide whether to help Montenegro stay in power.