Portugal has turned right along the path of extremism and with intensity. The conservative Luís Montenegr appeared last night as the virtual next prime minister, replacing the socialist António Costa, when the votes had been recounted in 80% of the voting centers. There was still the possibility, initially remote, that the candidate of the Socialist Party, Pedro Nuno Santos, would manage, with the ballots from the big cities, to put himself in first position.
Cautiously, everything pointed to the fact that the cycle of eight years and three months of progressive hegemony with socialist governments has ended with a complete disaster, a product above all of the brutal escalation of the ultra party, Chega.
This formation, the Portuguese ally of Santiago Abascal, Jair Bolsonaro or Marie Le Pen, was multiplying by two and a half times in the count, as had already happened in the exit poll data. It jumped from the discreet 7% two years ago, which still allowed it to be the third Portuguese political force, to a more than considerable level close to 20%.
On the other hand, the Democratic Alliance, the coalition of the conservative PSD party and the right-wing CDS, remained at its 2022 voting level, while the other force in this pole, the Liberal Initiative, could even retreat. As in Portugal seats are not awarded until it is arithmetically certain, there were doubts about the exact composition of Parliament. But there was none in terms of the shift to the right, since as a whole the parties of this spectrum have gone from 43% of the combined votes four years ago to far surpassing the barrier of 50%, up to perhaps 54%. .
In parallel, the progressive parties suffered an electoral disaster yesterday, which traumatically puts an end to those eight long years of dominance. They went from 52% two years ago to clearly below 40%. This fall is due almost entirely to the sharp collapse of the Socialist Party (PS), beheaded since the resignation in November, due to an unclarified case of alleged corruption by António Costa, who as prime minister has died of success.
Since two years ago he achieved by surprise the absolute majority that not even his party expected, his Government entered a spiral of instability, with the paradox that it was much greater than when he governed in coalition with the rest of the left or in a minority.
In the provisional data the PS fell more than twelve points, which did not prevent it from being a little less than two behind the conservatives, so that, despite everything, the possibility that Santos could have options for prime minister remained open. if in the end he was ahead of Montenegro and Montenegro, despite intense pressure from a large part of his party, maintains his campaign promise of not making an agreement with the extreme right of Chega, the party of the racist and xenophobic André Ventura.
However, except for a last-minute surprise, the campaign promise that weighed in yesterday’s count was the one assumed by the socialist Santos of not hindering the government of a Montenegro as the most voted candidate, in a way that frees him from having to understand each other. luckily. This is the easiest version of the cordon sanitairo against the extreme right that the main Portuguese parties have built in recent weeks.
In this way, the dizzying rise of Chega, which last night was disputing the PS for first place in the Alentejo, would be politically neutralized for the purposes of governability. However, this does not prevent the presence of the extreme right in the new Parliament from being noticeable in a way that was unthinkable a few months ago, with around a sixth of the seats.
The extreme right is the one that has capitalized on the collapse of the forces of three against two with the conservatives for dominance of the right-wing space. This situation becomes a source of instability, which is added to the fundamental one, that, if, as everything indicated yesterday, Luís Montenegro forms a government, he will do so in a minority, in a precarious position, depending on the agreements with a PS whose leadership has turned to the left with respect to António Costa’s stage.
The forecast of upcoming elections in the near future, which would be the third so far this decade, floated yesterday over the atmosphere of a peaceful Lisbon day, after the Atlantic storm with which the electoral campaign ended on Friday.
In any case, it is advisable not to rush because from the apparently convulsive scenario of 2015, an unprecedented government of alliance of the PS with the parties to its left emerged, which was considered dead before being born and ended up being the most stable that there has been in Portugal in decades. . Faced with the tendency of Portuguese and world politics to rush into abysses, it is advisable to wait to know the exact composition of Parliament and to know how the parties adapt to this scenario turned to the right along the path of extremism.
Furthermore, a defeat of the magnitude of yesterday’s, even if the new leader had the alibi of lack of time, should have repercussions on the internal situation of the PS, unless the socialist Santos achieved the objective for which he He fought last night until the end to be first and appeal to the cordon sanitaire with Chega. It was the hope that the left clung to in a night of desolation, with a strong general decline, since neither the Left Bloc nor the communists benefited from the weakening of the socialists, which only inflated the tiny Livre, Rui’s party. Tavares. Portugal has opened a new stage, oriented to the right and marked by the strong ultra rise, which remains to be seen how it is reflected in future governability.