On 10 March, Portugal’s populist radical-right party Chega became the country’s third-largest political force after a general election won by the right. Chega, which means ‘Enough’, represents a populist project based on a call to action for disaffected voters. When the party was founded in 2019, it had only elected one MP: the party leader André Ventura. From 7% of the vote in 2022 to 18% in 2024, the party’s electoral support has grown impressively in just a few years. With 50 out of 230 seats in parliament, Chega has established itself as a political force to be reckoned with. This electoral breakthrough marks the end of the Portuguese exception to the populist vote in Europe. Also, for the first time this century, a third party is challenging the mainstream left and right parties, putting an end to the traditional two-party system.
The rise of the far-right vote in Portugal: historical views
The results of these last general elections are rooted in past economic and political problems, which have led to a general distrust of traditional political parties. In 2011, the centre-right party, the Partido Social Democrata (PSD), implemented a strict austerity policy to cope with the IMF bailout. In 2015, the Socialists formed a government, supported in parliament by the Communists and the left-wing populist party in an alliance called Geringoça. But the mistrust continued to grow: during these years, while the political elite – the socialists and the centre-right – ruled Portugal, ordinary people felt left behind. On one hand, ordinary citizens were outraged by the Socialist Party over a corruption scandal involving former Prime Minister Jose Socrates; on the other hand, they criticized the center-right for years of austerity that had led to cuts in pensions and salaries. There was growing disaffection with the two traditional political parties, culminating in a 40% abstention rate in the elections.
In 2017, the far-right party of the time had only 0.5% of the vote. In Europe, Portugal was an exception and everyone thought that the far right couldn’t penetrate Portuguese institutions because the period of dictatorship and the fight against Salazarism was too recent. However, several researchers have shown that this was an illusion. Populism existed in Portugal decades ago, for example through everyday structural racism, even if it had no political existence. Indeed, Vincente Valentim of Oxford University shows that the Portuguese far right had mostly unqualified leaders who were unable to mobilise voters. When skilled politicians began to join the far right, they suddenly attracted those voters who no longer trusted the traditional parties.
In this political context, the figure of André Ventura suddenly gave a voice to these voters and constructed his popularity. In 2017, as a member of the PSD, he launched a campaign to become mayor of Loures, a municipality in the north of Lisbon. At the time, he was a popular football pundit and defender for Benfica. In politics, he was a nobody. After a meeting with the local police and his public relations agent, he realised that he needed to find targets to get media coverage. Gypsies became his target, and he landed interviews in which he explained that gypsies lived almost entirely on state subsidies. That made the headlines and people started to agree with him. His political fame began with this opportunistic and populist issue.
It is also important to understand that the media played a part in his rising popularity. Since then, journalists have given Ventura a lot of airtime. According to official ratings, Ventura had more airtime than the leader of the opposition and was only surpassed by the prime minister and the president. It reveals the crisis of journalism in Portugal. Indeed, newsrooms are increasingly competing for attention and ratings, and populist themes like Ventura’s are quite popular. So, beyond his populist rhetoric and political distrust, journalists helped him by giving him a platform to thrive.
The results of 2024’s general elections are the result of a combination of structural socio-cultural phenomena and a loss of confidence in traditional political parties. The rule of the 4Ds, theorized by Matthew Goodwin, Roger Eatwell and Oliver Heath to explain populism, also applies in Portugal and puts its finger on these structural evolutions. According to them, antipolitics and populists movements can be explained by four phenomena: general public Distrust in the traditional establishment; Destruction of long held notions of communal identity by accelerating patterns of globalization and movements between cultures ; Deprivation caused by inequalities ; and Dislocation between personal identity and specific political parties or brands. These four Ds are very important to understand why people identified with Ventura.
The disaffection of traditional parties also brought an end to the two-party system. Indeed, the victory of the center right and the nomination of Luis Montenegro as prime minister should not make us forget that this party won with its worst electoral results ever. For the socialist party, they reached their 2011’s score, a year when they were incumbents in a country that had to be bailed out by the IMF. It was the best they could do but it was their worst result ever. These two observations mean that people prefer to vote for smaller new parties rather than traditional ones. The only parties whose results have grown joined the political scene in the last decade:on the left, the europeist and ecologist party Livre, and on the right the liberal IL and the populist Chega. It reveals a deep distrust in classical democracy. In April 2021, a poll made by Expresso revealed that only 10% of Portuguese believed they live in a real democracy. Furthermore, Chega’s voters may partly be former abstainers as the abstention rate decreased from 51% in 2019 to 40% in 2024.
Cas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist, wrote there is no ideal way to deal with the populist phenomenon, as it varies from country to country and culture to culture. It’s all a question of timing in history. Denmark is an example of a country where the far right has retreated as quickly as it arrived. In fact, the Danish People’s Party (DPP), a far-right and populist party, went from 21% in 2015 to 8% in 2019 in the Danish general election. The left-wing party was able to steal votes from the populist right. In Spain, the centre-right People’s Party (PP) adopted some of Vox’s main proposals and stole some voters from the radical right.
This kind of deal with the populist radical-right could also happen in Portugal. On economic policy, Chega is defending increasingly left-wing measures in order to attract a moderate electorate. Pedro Nuno Santos, the new Socialist leader, even talked about stealing voters from Chega: after the elections, Pedro Nuno Santos conceded defeat and said that “there are no 18% of racists in Portugal”, referring to Chega’s score. He appealed to the Portuguese to regain their trust. If the PSD takes up issues such as immigration and corruption, it could steal some voters from Chega.
Prime Minister Luis Montenegro refused to form a government with Chega, keeping the populists out of the executive — at least for now. However, some members of the PSD said they should form an alliance with Chega.
Specificities of Portuguese populist vote
Several surveys were conducted to understand who voted for Chega. Firstly, the likelihood of a voter voting for Chega decreases with age. In other words, young people between the ages of 18 and 25 are more likely to vote for Chega, while older voters between the ages of 45 and 88 are more likely to vote for the Socialists. In fact, the Socialists have always put pensions at the heart of their agenda, something that Chega has just started to do in order to win over the old vote. André Ventura’s party is gaining ground among young voters because Chega has a great social media image, driven by new platforms like TikTok and Instagram. They’re the party with the most followers on these platforms.
Chega’s voters are also predominantly male, in a country where 58% of the electorate is male. The party also has the lowest proportion of university graduates, at 22%, and the highest proportion of high school graduates, at 55%. So it is mostly a poorly educated electorate, because they are young and stopped their education relatively early. They are young workers or students who are trying to understand the new world and the political families in it.
Are there any territorial divisions in Portugal regarding the voters?
LGC
In the legislative elections, Chega exceeded 10% in all regions except Porto. For example, in the south of Portugal, particularly in the district of Faro, they were the most popular party. There are several reasons for this, including the housing crisis: Chega blames immigrants for taking over existing houses. However, the Algarve is also a holiday region where many Portuguese buy houses to rent during the summer. In recent years, in order to control property prices, the Socialists have limited the construction of these holiday homes and the income from these property rents. Another issue is the lack of national health services in the region: Algarve has been waiting for a new hospital for several years. The story of a pregnant woman who had to give birth in a hospital hours away because she couldn’t get to the nearest hospital made the headlines, as did the stories of people dying for lack of health resources. In Faro, these issues create a general feeling of abandonment by the central government.
Alexandre R. Malhado
Furthermore, one of the latest European values surveys shows that Portugal is one of the only countries where immigration is not perceived as a growing threat. Is this a specificity of Portuguese populist rhetoric?
LGC
In recent years, immigration hasn’t been a central issue in Portugal. But Chega, like its populist brothers in Europe, has tried to put it on the agenda. Not only do the Portuguese understand immigration at a deep level – we ourselves were immigrants during several waves in the 20th century – but we also benefit from immigration in most areas: turismo, social security and demography. For example, Portugal is going through a demographic winter and the population is only growing thanks to immigration. Now that they have 50 MPs in parliament, Chega will push the agenda even further.
However, Chega’s main fuel for captivating voters is the fight against corruption, not immigration. For example, the corruption of former Prime Minister José Socrates is at the centre of the media scene, and if some of his crimes remain unpunished, it will deepen political distrust. Ventura responds to this mistrust with his anti-corruption rhetoric. He also tries to manipulate voters by using this corruption issue as an economic argument. For example, he proposes to finance his proposals to tackle the housing crisis with the “20 billion euros” lost to corruption. But these 20 billion euros includes to corruption in local government, and the Portuguese state cannot do anything about mayoral corruption. All this rhetoric is political instrumentalisation.
Alexandre R. Malhado
Chega’s strategy : “The medium is the message”
How much is the figure of André Ventura responsible for Chega’s ideology and victory?
LGC
One of the most important elements to bear in mind is that Chega is Ventura’s one-man show, just as the PVV in the Netherlands is Geert Wilders’ one-man show. In order to understand Chega’s political strategy and ideology, it is essential to look at this man’s career.
Born in a suburb of Lisbon in 1983, Ventura grew up in a middle-class family. His father sold bicycles and was a centre-right voter, and his mother was a civil servant who leaned to the left. He went to high school in a Catholic seminary and wanted to become a priest. He put an end to this ambition after falling in love with a girl. Afterwards, he went to law school, during which time he lived in a church with ultra-conservative friends, especially those from Opus Dei.
At the same time, as a student, he was very progressive. For example, he wrote essays defending the secularity of the state, gay marriage and the decriminalization of prostitution. In 2013, he completed his doctorate with a thesis on anti-terrorism policies after 9/11, criticising the stigmatisation of minorities and punitive populism. Four years before founding Chega, he wrote in a Portuguese newspaper: “We cannot simply close our eyes and turn a blind eye to the human tragedy represented by these desperate migratory flows. Countries like Portugal and Ireland should not forget their recent immigration past and should welcome as many migrants as possible”. It is difficult to understand how the same person has moved from these statements to populist rhetoric. Even in 2017, he was a member of the centre-right party. In fact, if you look at his family and political background, his core ideas are closer to the centre right ideology. For example, unlike all the members of Chega, he refuses to open the abortion debate. Deep down he may share ideas with the PSD, but he is prepared to act against his own values in order to gain power.
Alexandre R. Malhado
What is Ventura’s ideology today? What is his political project?
LGC
As journalists and academics, we no longer try to understand his ideas through what he says, because he’s a true opportunist. He is shaping his programme to attract new voters through ‘dog-whistle’ political techniques. When it was founded, Chega defined itself as an ultra-liberal party and wanted to privatise education and health care. Four years later, they have completely changed their programme and want to strengthen state health care and public education. To respond to the housing crisis, they want to give a direct subsidy to young first-time buyers, and the state will guarantee these houses if they don’t pay. On the economic front, Chega has completely changed its programme and is much more left-wing than before.
As an opportunist, Ventura can say very contradictory things. Chega presents itself as a democrat but they wink at fascist ideology — and they know that if they say anything controversial it will make the headlines. We see the same ambiguities with the salazarist past. For example, they celebrate the 25 of April, the Liberty Day in Portugal due to the end of our dictatorship. But, on the same day, they also tweet that the promise of the 25th of april has not been fulfilled because the Portuguese Republic is rotten. In this way, he can appeal to different audiences. For his moderate voters, he celebrates freedom and the end of Salazarism. For his protest voters, he criticises Portuguese democracy and says that Salazar’s motto, “God, Nation and Family”, must be brought back into the discussion.
The best way to understand Ventura’s ideology is to understand what populism is all about. Cas Mudde explains that, according to populist ideology, society is divided into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups: the pure people and the corrupt elites. This ideology is based on the opposition between “us” – the good Portuguese workers – and “them” – the gypsies, the “corrupt” Socialist Party or the first target they found. Populism is the glue that holds Ventura together.
Alexandre R. Malhado
You said Chega has a very contemporary use of social networks and algorithms. What part did it play in this victory?
LGC
Chega has a huge social media presence on Tik Tok and Instagram, which are the main mediums young people use to stay informed. Chega is Ventura’s one-man show, but several people play their parts in the whole orchestra. Rita Matias, for example, is a good-looking 25-year-old woman, with a demagogic way of speaking that attracts the attention of the youngest. She is one of the brains behind this social media operation. In 2022, she went to Spain and learned with Vox how to create entire infrastructures to spread news and how to massify products and make them go viral on TikTok. Chega also learned a lot from Fidesz, Orban’s party, which is one of Chega’s main model of governance.
Here is an example of their praxis: after a parliamentary debate, the social media team edits out the parts where Ventura is praised as a great politician, adds a fancy song and posts it on Tik Tok. For example, Ventura once told another MP that she should go back to Africa. They posted that part and it made a lot of noise on social media: it was all intentional. He got a lot of criticism for that, but he just wanted to go viral. It worked because every young person saw that clip. At the same time, she’s also talking to the camera like a TikToker, using memes to reach young people and getting the support from comic youtubers who didn’t used to talk about politics. These youtubers, who used to fight virtual wars, suddenly started talking to young people about politics and interviewed Rita Matias and André Ventura. 18-year-olds no longer just consume virtual pranks and stupid videos. They also consume populist right-wing material.
Chega on the international political scene
On European issues, Chega is volatile and hypocrite. While in 2019 he said that the Alternative for Germany (AFD) was a ridiculous extremist and inhumane party, now he’s taking selfies with them. Similarly, a few years ago he didn’t like Marine Le Pen and now he’s rolling out the red carpet for her in Lisbon.
Initially, Ventura wanted to join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group because the Spanish far-right party Vox was in it. The strong Polish representation in the ECR group was also a key argument for a man with a Catholic background who usually says he was chosen by God. Ventura also wanted to be part of the ECR because it was more moderate than Identity and Democracy (ID). But he was eventually accepted into the ID group. However, when it comes to foreign policy, Ventura doesn’t agree with most of the ID partners, while he agrees with the ECR.
Chega is likely to do well in the European elections, which will be a victory for Ventura, who wants to gain an international image. Since its creation in 2019, Ventura has wanted to build the party from the outside in. He wanted to become as big as Viktor Orban, in a kind of megalomania. Now, their first goal is to elect members of the European Parliament, because in 2019, in their first election ever, Chega didn’t elect anyone. One of Chega’s European dreams is to help unite the ECR and ID into a single party, perhaps with Viktor Orban as its leader.
Alexandre R. Malhado
What does Chega mean when the party argues for a pre-Maastricht EU?
LGC
Similarly to Marine Le Pen in France, Chega wants a “Europe of nations”, i.e. a European Union in which each nation retains its own sovereignty and its own say. But Chega’s Euro-ceptism is shy: Ventura, for example, fully supports the euro and EU funds. In Portugal, a lot of people don’t vote in European elections, so we don’t know what could happen – Chega could have another historic score due to the type of voters who are willing to make riskier choices, or they could subtly reduce their voting. In fact, most of Chega’s success comes from young people, who usually don’t vote. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in June.
Alexandre R. Malhado
How intense are its connections with leaders outside Portugal, for example Bolsonaro in Brazil or Orban in Hungary? Does he meet with Orban? Do you have any impression that there’s also some foreign interference with other European far-right parties?
LGC
Chega is the most popular party among Portuguese in the diaspora. In Brazil, for example, Chega has a close relationship with the Bolsonaro family, especially Eduardo and Jair Bolsonaro, who have declared their support for Ventura. I think Bolsonaro’s influence among Portuguese living in Brazil, especially among evangelicals, partly explains this result.
Ventura wants to show that he has strong ties with Viktor Orban, but this is not true. In fact, Chega is pro-Ukrainian, so there is a strong shift between the two parties. When he went to Budapest as a keynote speaker, Ventura didn’t talk about war. He wants to send military aid to Ukraine and knows that he cannot agree with Orban on this issue. So he focused on immigration, saying that Lisbon was starting to look like a Muslim country – something he doesn’t say in Portugal because it’s not popular. He is spreading this kind of discourse abroad to please the electorate and his international allies.
Alexandre R. Malhado
