Portugal has crossed a historical threshold. For the first time in more than half a century, from the, an ultra -right party becomes the second political force of the country so, after the celebration of the fourth legislative elections of May 18, he will be leader of the opposition after surpassing the Socialists in seats. Tonight, eleven days later the conservative victory and with the external vote count already completed, the ultra -rightist Chega has added two more deputies until he achieved 60 seats, thus surpassing the Socialist Party (PS), which stays with 58 and third place. The conservative Democratic Alliance (AD), led by Luís Montenegro, has revalued its most voted force status by staying at the end with 91 deputies in the Assembly of the Republic, after adding another two in the external vote count.
Hours before confirming the definitive result of the outer vote in Portugal, the leader of the extreme right, André Ventura, was very sure that Chega was going to consolidate as the second political force of the country. Upon arrival at the Lisbon Hotel, where the ultras followed the count, Ventura has indicated that he hoped to be “the leader of confusion or destruction,” trying to draw as a formation that promises to rigorously exercise the role of opposition leaders. “Being the leader of the opposition in Portugal is to exercise an inspection, surveillance, confrontation, fight against corruption … but at the same time it is knowing that we respect the tempo of the Portuguese,” he said before leaving a sentence that would mark the rest of the electoral night: “We will be the lighthouse of stability, of the authority of the order.”
Once confirmed that Chega and Democratic Alliance were distributed by the four deputies assigning the outer vote, with two for each party, and that the far -right formation exceeded the Socialist Party in seats, André Ventura appeared before his faithful to celebrate what he described as a decisive moment for Portugal. “It is a historic day. We are not going to be silent while the country deteriorates. We will build an alternative,” he said in a speech in which he avoided any reference to the consensus or the negotiation, but in which he did stress that his project does not seek to occupy the space of other forces, but replace them: “It will not be an alternative by names, or by quotas, nor for pacts. It will be an alternative by principles.
He also reiterated that Chega will not replicate the institutional trajectory of PS and PSD, the parties that have governed the country during the last half century: “You cannot expect Chega to do the same thing that PS and PSD did in these 50 years. We have not come to that. We have come to change Portugal.” In his speech, Ventura again exalted the combative dimension of his party, one of whose foundational features has been the direct confrontation with vulnerable groups and with the traditional democratic framework. “This match will not deny his DNA. Never. Portugal is fed up. Hartly. And what he voted is that he doesn’t want more of the same,” he said. He finished his speech with a message that, far from appealing to dialogue or institutional coexistence, reaffirms the political challenge that Chega launches into the system: “We have two paths: either we become like the PS and the PSD, or we maintain our DNA. And I guarantee that we will not betray our convictions. The time of change is coming. It is not a motto. It is a fact.”
Chega’s sorpaso to the PS has been consummated thanks to the vote of the nearly 350,000 Portuguese residents abroad, whose votes have been decisive. Of the four seats awarded in these constituencies, two have gone to the Ventura Party and the other two to the Democratic Alliance. The Socialist Party, for the first time since the establishment of democracy in 1974, runs out of representation abroad.
In countries such as Switzerland, France or Luxembourg, Chega has led the count with percentages well above the rest. In Switzerland it has reached 45.7 % of the votes; In France, 28.8 %, and in Luxembourg, more than 31 %. Belgium and the United Kingdom have also registered a strong implementation of the ultra vote. On the other hand, in Spain, the trend has been different: AD has won with 22.1 %, followed by PS (17.5 %) and Chega with 13.1 %. The general participation in the outer vote has been low, around 21 % of the census.
From the election night of May 18, Chega and the PS were tied with 58 seats each. The result of tonight breaks that balance. The president of the PS, Carlos César, assumed the defeat before it was formalized: “Chega will surpass our force and will be second in the elections,” he wrote in his Facebook account, recognizing a turn that had already taken shape in the first figures of scrutiny.
The conservative democratic alliance, led by Luís Montenegro, is consolidated as the first force, although without an absolute majority. Chega’s entry as an opposition leader, with an openly hostile speech to the bases of the democratic system, opens a stage of parliamentary instability and unpublished political polarization in Portuguese democracy.
André Ventura, from the set to Parliament
André Ventura’s career is deeply linked to its ability to occupy media space. In fact, before breaking into institutional policy, he built a public image as a sports gathering, lawyer and author of Best Sellers. His passage through the seminar and his presence in television sets molded a rhetorical, provocative and calculatingly disruptive profile. His first political incursion was in 2017, as a candidate of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) in Loules, where he launched his first campaign with a speech focused on attacking the gypsy community. That message became the cornerstone of Chega, the party that would found shortly after and has grown in its image and likeness.
Since then, he has consolidated a personalist style, supported by the intensive use of social networks and in a story of institutional victimism that reproduces patterns common to other extreme right leaders in Europe. The journalist Vítor Matos, author of Na Cabeça de Ventura, describes him as an “opportunist” who has managed to connect with social sectors that feel ignored by traditional parties. According to Matos, Ventura has traveled three stages in his career: academic and professional success, media fame and, finally, political power. And he has done it without giving up a populist language that erodes the basis of the Portuguese democratic consensus.
In the 2022 elections, Chega achieved 50 deputies. Eleven days after the 2024 elections, Ventura has managed to expand that support to 60 seats. Today he presents himself as an opposition leader, at the moment when Portuguese democracy celebrates half a century. And it does so by claiming a project that, rather than disputing political power, aims to delegitimize those who exercise it from the logic of the pact and pluralism.
