Chega: The End of The Ascent? Lessons From the European Election in Portugal

Don’t Stop Me Now may well have resonated through the grand Lisbon hotel where André Ventura gave his speech on the evening of June 9th, but his heart wasn’t in it. His hand, making a V sign, seemed out of place. His party, Chega, lost more than 700,000 voters since the early legislative election of March 10 (386,600 votes versus 1.17 million in March). The party failed to reach the symbolic 10% threshold (9.8% vs. 18.8% in March) and was only narrowly ahead of the Iniciativa Liberal (IL) party for third place. Of course, with 2 MEPs elected, it is making its debut in the European Parliament, even though Chega did not yet exist in the spring of 2019 at the time of the previous election.

But, to the right of the right, in the contest against IL, Chega is ahead in some forty municipalities. And south of the Tagus, in the Algarve and Alentejo regions where he had made strong gains last March, he is now slipping, even losing his second-place position in Faro and Portalegre. In Elvas (Alentejo), where Chega had achieved its best score in the legislative election with 36.5%, it even lost ten points.

After attending the 7 p.m. mass at the Estrela Basilica, as is his custom on election Sundays, André Ventura summed up the evening of June 9th with a succinct “Let’s not be upset by a result that wasn’t such a great victory”. In short, Don’t Stop Me Now. Has the forward march, if not triumphant, then the one he has been boasting about for the past five years, come to an end? With an abstention rate of more than 63%, what lessons can be drawn from a European election dominated by a series of ties between the PS and the PSD at around 31%, between Chega and IL at around 9%, and between the Left Bloc and the PC at around 4%?

“They will not pass!”

After accepting this disappointing result, André Ventura and his inner circle were quick to blame the head of the ticket, a 71-year-old former diplomat and political novice, António Tânger Corrêa — chosen above all for the sake of respectability and to avoid overshadowing the Chega leader. In the process, they glossed over the latter’s strong media presence, with his photo prominently displayed on all campaign posters and documents. It even overshadowed the head of the list, who was parodied by a comedian on the SIC television channel as “ Where’s Charlie?” Furthermore, it silenced the few timid internal critics who denounced the vertical structure of a party entirely devoted to its leader, as well as the lack of debate and succession. It was also a way of making up for a lackluster campaign, adopting the slogan of the European legislative election — “Europe needs a clean sweep” — while struggling to re-engage the electorate around its three core themes — corruption, immigration and security — with a ballot that was hardly favorable to Chega in a country where Europe brings people together and where sentiment towards Europe is higher than the European average. This enthusiasm, however, did not translate into a high turnout for the European election, both “due to a lack of interest and also a certain lack of awareness of European citizenship”, as political scientist Marina Costa Lobo points out ¹ .

Finally, the weeks following the March legislative election revealed the limits of a leader who sought to gain personal recognition and assert his leadership on the right above all else. The new Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, refused to invite him into government as he had demanded, citing the clear dominance of all right-wing parties in the Assembly of the Republic — 60% of seats against 40% for the left, while the Democratic Alliance alone (PSD and CDS) had won just 35% of seats. As much out of spite as out of political calculation, André Ventura took refuge in his usual anti-establishment position of denouncing the PS/PSD two-party system. At the same time, he is banking on the fragility of this new right-wing minority government — even at the risk of having to occasionally vote with the PS on legislation in a move described by CDS leaders as “Cheringonça”, echoing the “geringonça” that brought the left-wing parties together between autumn 2015 and 2019. In other words, in his quest for respectability and participation in government, André Ventura seemed to struggle to find a second wind after the March upset and to position Chega as the third political force — a first in Portugal for forty years and the waning of the PRD, the party of General Eanes, President of the Republic from 1976 to 1986. Though the June 9th result does mark a turning point for Chega, this could result in a more cautious approach in the coming months to toppling the government, for fear of a repeat of the European election score and the loss of some of its 50 MPs.

This is especially true as the fragmentation of the right has benefited Chega’s competitor, the Iniciativa Liberal party, created in 2017, which also positions itself as an alternative and third political force. Hence the long wait on the evening of June 9th to find out whether IL would prevail over Chega, which ultimately beat it by less than 30,000 votes, with two MEPs also elected. This ultra-liberal, authoritarian and pro-European party benefited greatly from the notoriety of its lead candidate, João Cotrim de Figueiredo, with his slogan “Europe, a space of freedom”, touting his professionalism and knowledge of Europe’s inner workings. Iniciativa Liberal emerged as the election’s surprising winner. The only party to have gained voters compared with the March legislative election (40,000 votes), with a lower turnout (36.5% compared with 59.9% in March), IL has no intention of stopping there with its 8 deputies in the Assembly of the Republic (5.2% of the vote in March 2024). The aim now is to compete with Chega as a third force by capturing a young, university-educated electorate and taking advantage of the right’s fragmentation which has been ongoing since 2019 — all the while looking to Argentina and its president Javier Milei (Costa Lobo et al., 2024).

For Chega, there’s still a long way to go. Polls had him scoring somewhere between 12% and 15%. On May 19th, at the Europa Viva 24 congress in Madrid, André Ventura even boasted that he would be “the next Prime Minister of Portugal”. Rejecting the label of radical and extremist, he declared: “We are not the most radical right in Europe, we are the only ones — the only ones! — to have risen up to defend the freedom of Europe and the freedom of the entire world” (Forti, 2024). This was also a way of competing with Iniciativa Liberal, which has made this issue its rallying point. In addition to the general context of the European election in Portugal, which was not very favorable for a nativist party like Chega, the fact that its leader did not lead the list once again underlined his central role.

Chega voters, often former abstainers, primarily vote for André Ventura because they are convinced that he is the only one “able to act” in an anti-establishment way, thereby finding “self-affirmation” in the vote. In other words, the Chega vote is proving to be volatile, with many abstainers willing to return to that option when the stakes appear secondary, or even to shift their votes to other groups, such as IL. Nevertheless, it would seem premature, if not unrealistic, to suggest that the populist radical right is in retreat in Portugal. For André Ventura, this is no more than a warning shot.

Is the ball in the center’s court?

The results of the European election ultimately resulted in a series of ties between Chega and IL for third place.

Between the Left Bloc (BE) and the CDU coalition, centered around the PC, for left-wing victories of around 4%, each of these parties retained one MEP seat, compared with 2 in 2019. But they failed to stop their electoral decline. Finally, there was a tie between the PS and the Democratic Alliance coalition (PSD-CDS), with the PS winning by a narrow margin with 32.1% of the vote and 40,000 more votes than the AD (31.1%). It was a symbolic victory, hailed by the PS’s new Secretary-General Pedro Nuno Santos, three months after the PS’s defeat — also by a narrow margin — in the early legislative election (29.3% to the AD’s 30.1%). The head of the PS list, Marta Temido, former Minister of Health, fulfilled her mission with a completely updated list, losing just one seat — 8 compared to 9 in 2019 — but coming out on top in a tense environment of showdown with the ruling right-wing coalition, three months after the loss of an absolute majority in the Assembly and a 13-point tumble between the January 2022 legislative election and those of March 10th. It’s hard to say the same for the Democratic Alliance whose young frontrunner, Sebastião Bugalho, a 28-year-old journalist and columnist —  touted as a key asset for broadening the electorate — was unable to overtake the PS or convince right-wing and center-right voters that he was a better candidate than 67-year-old Rui Moreira, Porto’s mayor since 2013, who was once considered to lead the ticket. The youth campaign that was attempted did not fully succeed, and for AD the question of its minority government’s long-term viability remains unresolved in the run-up to the budget vote next October, which has been described as a real “trial by fire”.

There are few options open to the head of government.

He could form an alliance with Chega — a scenario so far ruled out by Luís Montenegro, who is under the watchful eye of the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who decided to dissolve the Assembly last November, following António Costa’s resignation. The Prime Minister, however, who belongs to the same political party, the PSD, has a difficult relationship with him. Under the guise of frenetic activism, announcing a multitude of measures — on immigration, corruption — the head of government has sought not only to establish his authority by demonstrating his ability to govern, but also to shift some of his rhetoric to the right in order to undermine Chega — who he openly refuses to compromise with.

The other option for survival would be to negotiate support from the PS on a case-by-case basis in order to avoid a motion of censure, particularly on the next budget vote, by conceding a few measures favored by the PS. In other words, to govern from the center, forming a kind of new “centrist bloc”, as was the case from 1983 to June 1985 with Mário Soares as head of a minority PS government. A few signals have been given here and there, such as the head of government’s resolute support — and that of the entire political class, apart from Chega — for former PS Prime Minister António Costa’s candidacy to succeed Belgian Charles Michel as President of the European Council. On the evening of June 9th, no sooner had the results been announced than Luís Montenegro emphatically declared his support for António Costa’s candidacy, somewhat masking the defeat of the Democratic Alliance by calling for a sacred union in favor of his predecessor in São Bento.

In fact, neither of the two major governing parties — PS and PSD — received a clear signal from the electorate on the evening of June 9th. Neither is certain of being able to benefit from another dissolution in the event of a deadlock on the budget in October. And neither is safe from a far-right rebound amid an anti-establishment mood stoked by André Ventura, who has just been appointed a member of the Council of State following Chega’s electoral breakthrough in the parliamentary election.

A consultative body which, along with the Constitutional Tribunal, took over from the Revolutionary Council in 1982, the State Council is consulted by the President of the Republic on important acts, such as the dissolution of the Assembly, the resignation of the government or a declaration of war. In addition to its statutory members — including the President of the Republic, the President of the Assembly, the President of the Constitutional Tribunal and the Prime Minister — the Council also includes members appointed by the President (5) and the Assembly (5).

The renewal of the Council has propelled André Ventura onto the State Council, although not without reservations, as the three main parties drew up a list of 5 names — including Pedro Nuno Santos for the PS and Carlos Moedas, mayor of Lisbon, for the PSD — approved by only 168 votes out of 208 on June 19th. This is also a sign of the normalization that has been underway in recent years, since Chega burst onto the scene in autumn 2019 — a normalization that partly explains this party’s electoral progress under the autocratic leadership of André Ventura (Valentim, 2021; 2024). The PS will be under heavy pressure to avoid deepening the political crisis by causing yet another dissolution which could tarnish the end of President Rebelo de Sousa’s final term in office. And so, after these stalemates, will the ball be in the center’s court?

References

Costa Lobo, M., Heyne, L., & Manucci, L. (2024). A evolução política do eleitorado de direita. In M. Costa Lobo & A. Espírito Santo (dir.), Eleitorado Português no Século XXI. Lisbon: Tinta da China. pp. 279-303.

Forti, S. (2024, 22 May). Prendre l’Europe par l’élection. L’extrême-droite mondiale à Madrid. Le Grand Continent.

Valentim, V. (2021). Parliamentary Representation and the Normalization of Radical Right Support. Comparative Political Studies 54(14).

Valentim, V. (2024). The Normalization of the Radical Right: A Norms Theory of Political Supply and Demand. Oxford University Press.

1.  Documentary “Portugal na Europa – raízes e horizontes” (Portugal in Europe – roots and horizons), Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, RTP, 2024.