Portugal turned right yesterday down the path of extremism after a close recount until almost the last ballot. If the defeat of the center-left against the sum of conservatives, ultras and liberals was very clear, by 13 points in percentage of vote difference, as far as the candidacies are concerned there was an exciting and very even fight until almost the last vote. In the end, the Democratic Alliance coalition, led by the conservative Luís Montenegro, won, with less than a point of advantage over the Socialist Party (PS), whose candidate, Pedro Nuno Santos, admitted defeat and announced his move to the opposition. Thus, after a very nervous scrutiny, Montenegro has guaranteed access to power without depending on Chega, the far-right led by André Ventura, which multiplied its votes by 2.5.
Thus ends in Portugal eight years and three months of progressive rule and the Government of the socialist António Costa, who resigned in November after a still unclarified case of alleged corruption in his environment.
While Portugal was in suspense before the highly contested fight for first place, Chega, the far-right party led by André Ventura, was savoring its great success. This formation, the Portuguese ally of Santiago Abascal, Jair Bolsonaro and Marine Le Pen, was multiplying by two and a half times in the count. It jumped from the discreet 7% two years ago, which still allowed it to be the third Portuguese political force, to 18%.
On the other hand, the Democratic Alliance, the coalition of the conservative PSD party and the right-wing CDS, fell 1.4 points compared to its vote level in 2022. The other force of this pole, Liberal Initiative, remained. As in Portugal seats are not awarded until it is arithmetically certain, doubts about the exact composition of Parliament marked the election night, since the four deputies from abroad were also missing. However, from the beginning none was clear regarding the shift to the right, since as a whole the parties on this spectrum have gone from a combined 43% two years ago to 53%.
In parallel, the progressive parties suffered an electoral disaster yesterday that traumatically puts an end to those eight long years of dominance. They went from 52% two years ago to remain at 40%. This fall is almost entirely due to the sharp thirteen-point drop of the beheaded Socialist Party (PS).
The socialist government died of success. Since two years ago he achieved by surprise the absolute majority that he did not expect, he entered into a paradoxical spiral of instability, compared to the placidity of his stage in coalition with the rest of the left or in a minority.
The PS dropped thirteen points, which did not prevent it from being a few tenths behind the conservatives, with whom they were exchanging first position. In this way, despite everything, the possibility was kept open that Santos could have options to be prime minister, if in the end he was ahead of Montenegro and it kept its electoral promise of not making an agreement with Chega.
However, throughout the mutant night, the campaign promise that carried the most weight was the one assumed by the socialist Santos of not hindering the government of Montenegro as the most voted candidate, so as to free him from having to deal with Ventura. It was the easiest version of the cordon sanitaire against the extreme right that the main Portuguese parties have built in recent weeks. And it is the one that prevailed once Santos recognized his defeat and congratulated Montenegro.
In this way, the dizzying rise of Chega, which became the leading force in the Algarve, is 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, occupying around a fifth of the seats.
The extreme right is the one that has capitalized on the collapse of the socialists, to the point of establishing a three-to-two correlation of forces with the conservatives for dominance of the right-wing space. This situation becomes a source of instability that adds to the fundamental one, that Luís Montenegro will form a minority government, in a precarious position, depending on the agreements with a PS whose leadership has turned to the left with respect to 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 to draw 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, but with equality between the two largest parties.
Governance would have been even more devilish with the PS ahead, the hope that the left clung to in a night of desolation, with a strong general fall, since neither the Left Bloc nor the communists benefited from the weakening of the socialists , which only inflated the tiny Livre, Rui Tavares’ party. While waiting for the four seats from abroad to be awarded, which should be divided equally between conservatives and socialists, Portugal has opened a new stage, oriented to the right and with a virtual new prime minister, the conservative Montenegro, who was spokesperson parliamentary, but he lacks executive experience, in addition to having the breath of the extreme right on his neck.