Tirso Faria, Chega activist and former vice-president of the party’s council in Santo Tirso, says that Rui Afonso registered dozens of members of group 1143 in the party and “paid them months of fees and amounts to go and vote”.
A defendant in case 1143 accused Chega deputy Rui Afonso of buying votes from members of the neo-Nazi group, dismantled on January 20 by the Judiciary Police (PJ), Público reported this Sunday.
Tirso Faria, coordinator of the Santo Tirso nucleus of the neo-Nazi organization, told the newspaper that Rui Afonso “signed up dozens of members [do 1143] in the party, he paid them months of fees and amounts to go and vote”.
“As far as I know, the values involved will be between 3,500 and 3,800 euros“, added Tirso Faria, Chega activist and former vice-president of the party’s council in Santo Tirso.
The leadership led by Rui Afonso won the internal elections for the Chega no Porto district in September 2023, but without disclosing the total number of voters, recalled the .
“More than a hundred members of this group entered [o 1143] and other groups and heard about payments above 3,500 euros“, Artur Carvalho, former deputy to Rui Afonso in the Chega district in Porto, told the daily.
On January 20, theand another 15 defendants were constituted, on suspicion of committing crimes of discrimination and incitement to hatred and violence, aggravated threat and coercion, qualified physical harm and possession of a prohibited weapon.
The Public Ministry alleges that 1143 was preparing to have a paramilitary nature in anticipation of a possible “race war” and organizing, for 2026, two actions insulting the Prophet Muhammad to provoke negative or even violent reactions from the Muslim community in Portugal.
The group would be led by Mário Machado, including from prison, where he has served a sentence since May 2025 in another case, for discrimination and incitement to hatred and violence.
On January 24, the Central Criminal Instruction Court decided that five of the 37 alleged members of 1143 will await the investigation in pre-trial detention.
The remaining 32 defendants were released, 29 of whom were required to report weekly to the police station, and three with only an identity and residence permit, the court said in a statement.
On February 4, lawyer António Garcia Pereira invoked Chega’s links to the neo-Nazi group 1143 and the sentence for the removal of André Ventura’s posters against gypsies to reinforce the request for the party’s extinction.
At the end of October 2025, Garcia Pereira filed a complaint addressed to the Attorney General of the Republic so that the Public Ministry activates legal mechanisms to extinguish Chega, considering that the party violates the Constitution.
In the new request sent to the Public Ministry, consulted by Lusa, Garcia Pereira once again defends the extinction of Chega due to its “evident, successively reaffirmed and reinforced, racist and fascist nature”.
