The outcome of the Portuguese election held on May 18 delivered a major jolt to the Third Republic, challenging a political order that has remained largely unchanged for the past fifty years. The Socialist Party (PS), long the closest Portugal has had to a “deep state,” suffered a crushing defeat and is now tied with the national-conservative Chega after losing 20 seats. Chega, meanwhile, secured its highest ever share of the vote, with 22.6%. Once expat votes are counted on May 28, Chega may well become the second party with 60 seats, while the PS will be relegated to third place with 58 in the 230-seat Assembly.
With 23.4% of the vote, the Socialists’ collapse marks their worst performance since 1987, a damaging chapter in the legacy of António Costa, the former prime minister now presiding over the European Council. Even as the supposedly centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD), led by incumbent Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, claimed victory with 32.1% and 86 seats, it was André Ventura’s Chega, surging to 22.6%, that stole the spotlight.
The Socialist rout is no mere electoral hiccup; it is the bitter fruit of Costa’s hubris. From 2015 to 2023, his government flung open Portugal’s borders, bringing the foreign-born population to almost three million—not far from 30% of the country’s entire population —and exponentially increasing immigration rates. Framed as an economic—and, of course, demographic— salve, this policy instead unleashed a catastrophic housing crisis, with prices soaring by around 100% since 2000.
Public services collapsed under the enormous tidal wave of newcomers, and a 2023 Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation report revealed that 67% of Portuguese linked immigration to rising crime, while 71% want a reduction in migrant inflows. Days before the election, the nation was shocked to learn that, as a consequence of an imploding National Health Service, child mortality had risen by 20% in 2024. The Socialist vision of a cosmopolitan, multicultural, and post-national Portugal clashed with the lived reality of strained communities.
The electorate’s verdict was merciless. Pedro Nuno Santos, the Socialist leader, resigned on Monday, his party now a husk. Just three years ago, Costa arrogantly announced that his supermajority would “last four years” and that the Right ought to “get used to it.” Now, Costa’s legacy lies in ruins. If he does as much for the EU as Council President as he did for the Portuguese Left as prime minister, a Europe of sovereign nations may be quite close.
The media’s vitriol towards Chega backfired spectacularly. For months, Portugal’s press painted Chega leader Ventura as a xenophobic pariah, his party as a threat to the democratic fabric, and his voters as an unsophisticated redneck horde. Yet, as in 2024, when Chega quadrupled its seats despite similar attacks, the genius populi saw through the sanctimonious posturing. The more the media howled, the more voters rallied to Chega’s banner. This dynamic, echoing the rise of Europe’s sovereignist Right, reveals a profound disconnect: the Lisbon establishment, cocooned in its urbanite echo chambers, woefully misread the public’s rage.
Tribune of the people
At the heart of this upheaval stands André Ventura, the founder and leader of Chega, who has proved exceptionally skilled at interpreting the genuine concerns and priorities of the Portuguese people. Ventura channels the public’s disgust with corruption, immigration, and the sclerosis of a regime that has miserably failed to modernise Portugal, in a country disgracefully surpassed in per-capita GDP even by nations that suffered under the yoke of communism, such as Czechia or Poland. Millions have left the country in recent decades, and 40% of all young graduates are forced to emigrate in search of a better life. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of foreigners pour in annually.
Ventura’s rhetoric—blunt, unapologetic, and often provocative—resonates with those who feel abandoned by a bourgeois left that sneers at their concerns. Chega’s slogan, “Save Portugal,” is less a campaign pitch than a battle cry against national collapse.
Time for a union of the Right
The election’s arithmetic tells a story of historic realignment. With the AD’s 86 seats, Chega’s 58, and the Liberal Initiative’s 9, the ‘non-left’ now commands about 70% of all MPs. This dominance opens a rare window to rewrite Portugal’s communist-inspired constitution, with its solemn pronouncements that Portugal was—is—on the road to“a socialist society.” A united Right could purge these anachronisms, crafting a charter that champions national sovereignty, cultural cohesion, the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, and the common good. Chega’s manifesto offers a credible blueprint: rebuild the state’s primordial functions of security and defence, purge the education system of the woke mind virus, stop the migratory deluge, protect strategic assets in an age of renewed protectionism, and restore economic independence. Such a project would not merely reform Portugal but wholly redefine it.
All eyes now turn to AD leader and Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, whose refusal to partner with Chega has defined his tumultuous tenure. A year ago, his adamant “no is no” stance—dismissing Ventura’s party as “unreliable” and unfit to govern—birthed a fragile minority government. The Spinumviva scandal, implicating Montenegro’s family consultancy firm in a suspected corruption case, eroded his credibility, and a March 2025 confidence vote, backed by the Socialists and Chega, toppled his cabinet. Now, with 86 seats, Montenegro remains 30 short of a majority.
The cry of the people couldn’t have been clearer: having elected a two-thirds right-leaning majority parliament, the country has made it amply obvious that it has no desire for another four years of wishy-washy Europhile globalist centrism. Portugal wants a strong right-wing government of national rejuvenation.
Montenegro now faces a decisive choice: embrace Chega, forging a robust right-wing government capable of enacting profound reforms, or cling to a failed strategy of cordon sanitaire, preventing the people’s wishes from being implemented. The AD can either be a part of the solution or a part of the problem. Whatever role it decides to choose for itself, the future will be the judge.
If Montenegro finds it in himself to, for once, put country over ego and party, a national transformation is possible. The parliamentary majority for it now exists. If he falters, the tremors will only grow, and Chega will eventually win and govern alone. In Lisbon, history is not merely knocking—it is breaking down the door.
