Once Upon a Time There was a Country…
Early parliamentary elections were held in Portugal on Sunday, called after a motion of no confidence in Montenegro’s right-wing government (PSD-CDS) had been filed and rejected. The underlying reason for this motion of no confidence had to do with the prime minister’s legal and ethical fitness for office. Montenegro was caught up in a tangled web of interests and was threatened with a parliamentary inquiry (CPI) to investigate whether he kept an ongoing consultancy business registered at his home, receiving payments from companies through that business while in government. In short, the fall of the government was not politically motivated, but based on a legal-ethical conflict of interest. What the results of Sunday’s elections show is that a lack of commitment to law and ethics are not, in electoral terms, sufficient to bring down governing leaders and/or MPs.
The Results
| PSD/CDS
(AD) |
PS | CHEGA | IL | Livre | PCP/PEV | Bloco | PAN | |
| traditional and conservative right | social democrats | far right | liberals | Green left | left | left | animal rights | |
| Legislative 2024 | 28%
77 MP |
28%
78 MP |
18.1%
50 MP |
4.9%
8 MP |
3.2%
4MP |
3.2%
4 MP |
4.4%
5 MP |
2%
1 MP |
| Legislative 2025 | 32.1%
86 MP |
23.4%
58 MP |
22.6%
58 MP |
5.5%
9 MP |
4.2%
6 MP |
3%
3 MP |
2%
1 MP |
1.4%
1 MP |
| European Parliament | EPP | S&D | Patriots for Europe | Renew Europe | X | The Left
|
The Left
|
X |
At the time of writing, the election results are still provisional, the votes from emigrant constituencies Europe and Outside Europe have yet to be counted and four remaining seats allocated. In all likelihood, these results will have a significant impact on the overall result, not only in symbolic terms, but above all specifically on democratic life in the country. If recent trends continue, far-right Chega will gain at least two more MPs, surging ahead of the Socialist Party into second place and as such, becoming leader of the opposition. This, rather than being merely theoretical, is the most likely scenario. A year ago, three of these four seats went to the right (1 to PSD; and 2 to Chega). What is more, gaining one of these four seats will be enough for the combined right to achieve an unprecedented two-thirds parliamentary majority, enabling them to make appointments to the Constitutional Court, the bodies that govern the judiciary such as the Public Prosecutor’s Office and, if they so choose, to amend the Constitution.
The Triumph of the Right
The right triumphed in Portugal yesterday. Despite its overall substantial growth, though, these results cannot be interpreted in general terms.
The governing AD (Aliança Democrática) coalition, between what remains the largest party on the Portuguese right (PSD) and a small party on the conservative right (CDS), won the elections, but their gains could not be called spectacular by any means.
The results of the Liberal Initiative (IL), which campaigned on its potential role as guarantor of governability, also made gains, but by less than a percentage point, not enough to exert a discernible influence on the AD coalition. AD needs IL, but there are not enough IL MPs to guarantee an absolute parliamentary majority of 116 out of 230 seats. Milei’s right-wing buddies are gaining ground in Portugal, but they are falling short of their goals: they don’t have the power to influence the main right-wing powers, nor will they be part of the government.
The segment of the right that grew substantially and won was the far-right, Chega party. It made gains n terms of votes and parliamentary seats, bringing the country to the brink of a democratic abyss. Montenegro, the former and future prime minister, had guaranteed in the previous term that he would not govern with the far right, and he renewed that commitment in this campaign. However, even though he has adhered to this commitment, he has done so at the expense of arguing with the far-right agenda, calling it to account. In doing so he has radicalized his own party, contributing to a growing normalization of fascism. For example, in the previous term, with support from Chega, the government amended the Basic Health Law which now limits and prevents migrants accessing public health services. The issue of immigration is perhaps the clearest example of this ongoing process of radicalization on the right. During the election campaign, the incumbent government announced measures to deport immigrants in an obvious ploy to win over far-right voters. Its agenda also includes a push to roll back various social, cultural, political and economic rights. As such, this right-wing victory is a declaration of war on emancipatory social movements and the achievements of democratic Portugal. Workers, feminists, the poor, ethnic and sexual minorities, migrants, people with disabilities — we all find ourselves in the sights of the right.
Chega was founded in 2019 and has experienced extraordinary growth. In six years, it has gone from gaining 1.3% to 23% of the vote. As in other countries, it has given voice to a section of society that we knew existed, but who lived in hiding, in shame and without a voice in elections. All that has changed and, today, the democratic house is home to 58 fascist deputies. And if Chega used to plead for an invitation to join the government, today its horizon has broadened and the far right now dreams of governing on its own or being the driving force of a radical right-wing government.
This process of fascistization is not new. We are seeing similar trends all over Europe. However, it is still hard to fathom how a party riddled with contradictions, based on populist bluster and lies, tainted by one scandal after another — including MPs accused and convicted of numerous outrageous crimes, such as domestic violence, sexual abuse of minors, theft of suitcases at an airport — nevertheless continues to grow its votes and seats in parliament. There is a country captured by the far right that we need to understand and address, for this enraged country has reasons to be angry. Figuring out how to replace hatred with solidarity as a response is one of the difficult tasks facing the left.
A Hecatomb in the Left
Taken as a whole, the left-wing parties (broadly considered to include PS, BE, PCP, Livre, and PAN) hold around 30% of the parliament that has emerged from these elections. With the exception of Livre, all the left-wing parties lost ground, although Left Bloc experienced the sharpest drop.
The Socialist Party’s Responsibility
The Socialist Party suffered a heavy defeat yesterday — its worst electoral result since 1987 — and this has already resulted in the resignation of its leader (Pedro Nuno Santos). It is important to understand what led to this. The 2015 elections were marked by the widespread impoverishment of the population imposed on the country by the IMF, EC and ECB Troika. The Socialist Party, despite not winning these elections, managed to form a government thanks to a parliamentary support agreement negotiated with the Left Bloc (BE) and the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). It was the time of the so-called Geringonça[1] government. This agreement, while imposing measures in select areas and excluding others of importance to the left, resulted in an increase in wages and pensions, as well as the extension of other social rights. In the 2019 elections, results confirmed the popularity of Geringonça: The PS won the elections and the Left Bloc and PCP went down slightly. However, the Socialist Party preferred not to keep its commitments to the left-wing parties and decided to govern alone without a parliamentary agreement, leading the country into a new crisis and elections in 2022, where it won with an absolute majority. From 2022 to 2024, the PS governed by absolute majority, using this to reject the proposals put forward by the left-wing parties, in a wholesale return to the traditional paradigm of constraining public investment in order to accelerating compliance with European rules on public deficit and spending. Despite its absolute majority, the government fell apart halfway through its term, and new elections were called for 2024, which resulted in the return to power of the right (PSD/CDS) and the strengthening of the far right (from 12 to 50 MPs). For two years, the PS had free rein to do everything and did nothing. This meant that it was unable to present itself as a viable alternative to either the centre or the left in these elections. What is more, on fundamental issues such as housing, its proposals were congruent with those of the right. The PS failed to present any measures to immediately address the housing crisis, refusing to support the Left Bloc’s proposal to impose rent ceilings. Instead, it shifted closer to the right-wing proposal based on building housing at some unspecified future date and on measures anchored in tax benefits that have already proven to be irrelevant, inconsequential, and useless in confronting this crisis. Despite this, the PS showed no shame in calling for a tactical vote from the left, a request not grounded in anything substantial, but rather rooted in a strategy of using emotional blackmail and fear in an attempt to sway the election. The PS has failed the country and failed the left.
The Social Left and Electoral Left: a Paradox
The CDU (a coalition of PCP and PEV – Partido Ecologista “Os Verdes”) and PAN brought nothing new to the elections, running campaigns which were practically identical to previous ones. Conversely, Bloco de Esquerda went into this campaign with new approaches, both to their program and to the electorate, based on the assumption that if times have changed, the way we face them must change too. Based on the analysis of Die Linke’s experience, the Left Bloc built a different campaign, based on direct, door-to-door contact with people, replacing the classic rallies with social gatherings, and putting its long-standing activists into the electoral contest. This was hampered by time pressures and the difficulties of implementing all these transformations quickly enough to meet the electoral calendar. Despite the Bloc’s disastrous electoral result, it ran a mobilizing campaign and, for this reason, I believe that the lessons learned from this experience will give rise to new types of party membership and activism.
Livre has been the only left-wing party to grow significantly over the last two elections. Its results deserve attention, because they highlight an issue that will be central to the stagnating left.
Livre is around 11 years old and was founded and built by its leader Rui Tavares, a respected historian who began his political career as an independent candidate for the Left Bloc in the 2009 European elections. He was elected MEP but left the Left Bloc in 2011 and did not give up his seat, remaining in the European Parliament as an independent. The break with Bloco also meant he had to change his European parliamentary group from the GUE/NGL to the European Greens (Verdes/ALE). Although Livre no longer has any MEPs, it is part of this political family and has represented its positions in Portugal, including some very controversial ones, such as on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The militaristic slant of Rui Tavares’ party was a hallmark of its electoral program, despite the fact that this absolutely contradicts its own self-definition as an environmental party, unless the climate transition it advocates is based exclusively on private individual behaviour. His electoral program clearly proposed increasing investment in defence and security as well as rearming and strengthening Europe’s military capacity.
Curiously, if we analyse the paths of Livre and Chega, we can establish a true parallel between them. Both parties were founded, raised and built around one man, one on the right the other on the left. They have implemented similar strategies in pursuit of power: Chega offers its support to PSD and Livre to PS. Livre’s entire campaign was based on this, as had been the previous one. And neither party ever clarified what commitments they would be willing to make to join the government of the larger parties they chose to support. Despite being at opposite ends of the political spectrum, they employ comparable strategies.
But Livre has grown and the rest of the left has not. This raises the question as to why an urban, middle-class left-wing party with limited social foundation has managed to mobilize left-wing voters. What would explain why the parties with social and political roots — in the unions and social movements — are experiencing a decline while the party of proclamations and symbolic power has grown? This is certainly a debate that will occupy the left in the near future.
The Future: “For Every Grunt, a Raised Fist!”
Despite the right’s gains, the much-needed stability which it used to emotionally blackmail the electorate is still out of its reach. The AD coalition (PSD/CDS) has not achieved an absolute majority and its most obvious partner, IL, does not have enough seats to guarantee it, either. What is more, Chega, who was always willing to get into bed with AD, despite the cordon sanitaire imposed by Montenegro, is now no longer interested in this kind of partnership, because the election outcome has allowed it to dream of taking office on its own. We don’t know how PS will handle its crisis, the leader it will choose and what strategy it will devise. A central bloc with AD is a possibility, given the party’s base of social support and the weight of the electoral defeat after their strategy of refusing to make any agreements with the right. If PS, despite its defeat, maintains this strategy, parliamentary stability will immediately be forged with agreements among the right, allowing us to foresee a scenario of accelerating economic savagery, attacks on public services and the welfare state, privatization of what remains of strategic sectors of the economy, and the potential extension of that to the welfare and institutional sectors. But if these are conjectures, one thing we can already take as read is that the most vulnerable will come under attack. Life is going to get much harder for workers, whether in the new precarious sectors such as digital platforms or in the traditional sectors — a PSD campaign promise was to make adjustments to the law on union action (the Strike Law) —, for women, LGBTQIA+ people, Roma communities, people with disabilities, immigrants, the poor; in short for all those who didn’t have the good fortune to be born “perfect”, in the right family, with the appropriate skin colour and conventional sexual orientation, and also for all those who refuse to be pressed into conforming to societal stereotypes.
The left’s responsibility is therefore immense, but that shouldn’t limit or frighten us. Let us remember our history, our heritage, let us remember where we come from. On the left, politics has always been about activism and commitment. And although the left’s presence in parliament has suffered a major setback, the country’s left is still alive, militant and combative.
It would be beneficial for the left to talk and reach a level of understanding among its ranks, to think together, to make alliances around specific issues, and to close ranks. This requires maturity, commitment and respect — three conditions perfectly within the reach of a left committed to social struggle.
To end on a personal note; Bolsonaro’s election win in Brazil in 2018, put everyone on the left into a state of shock. In Portugal, we were a little more taken aback, given the historical relations between both countries, the large Brazilian community living in Portugal, and, in particular, the relations between the left and social movements in both cases. The PSOL’s Guilherme Boulos was in Portugal at the time, and, at a public session in Porto, he gave me a valuable lesson in militancy and combativeness. The Boulos I met didn’t lament; he wasn’t paralyzed, wondering “how is this possible?”; he was not defeated. The Boulos I met, with O coiso’s victory still lingering, was a party activist with his head held high, aware of the difficulties, but absolutely committed to the fight needed to turn the balance of power. I remember him today, because this is the day to raise our heads, take a deep breath, persevere, and step up our fight. My hope lies in the certainty of the righteousness of our proposals, and in the capacity of the party members and activists that characterizes the left. Times are difficult, but difficulties have never defeated or weakened the left. As of yesterday, solidarity, decency and socialism are more thinly represented in the Portuguese Parliament, but on the streets, in the unions, in the social movements, the struggle is alive and will continue.
Andrea Peniche is a feminist activist, member of the collective A Coletiva, which participates in organizing the International Feminist Strike in Portugal, and a member of the Left Bloc. She frequently writes for various publications as an author and co-author on issues of feminism and political philosophy. Instagram: a_coletiva_feminismos.
[1] Geringonça is a word meaning a complicated contraption used in Portugal to describe the coalition government formed by a number of parties in order to keep the party which won a simple majority out of government. It denotes something that doesn’t look like it should work, but somehow it does.