Portugal Far-Right Chega Party Underperforms in Local Elections

Por­tu­gal’s far-right Chega par­ty won its first may­oral seats in local elec­tions, but fell well short of expec­ta­tions, secur­ing only three munic­i­pal­i­ties as its vote share halved from May’s par­lia­men­tary elec­tions. On 13 Octo­ber 2025, The Guardian report­ed that the six-year-old nation­al­ist par­ty took con­trol of three city halls with an 11.86 per­cent share of the over­all vote, well below its tar­get of win­ning 30 munic­i­pal­i­ties.. The arti­cle begins:

CHEGA, Portugal, and the Global National Conservative Alliance

CHEGA! (mean­ing “Enough!” in Por­tuguese) emerged in 2019 as Por­tu­gal’s first suc­cess­ful far-right par­ty since the coun­try’s return to democ­ra­cy in 1974, found­ed by for­mer foot­ball com­men­ta­tor and Social Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty dis­si­dent André Ven­tu­ra. The par­ty has expe­ri­enced mete­oric growth, surg­ing from a sin­gle par­lia­men­tary seat in 2019 to 60 seats in the May 2025 elec­tions, over­tak­ing the Social­ist Par­ty to become Por­tu­gal’s main oppo­si­tion force.

CHEGA! pro­motes a nation­al­ist, anti-immi­gra­tion agen­da with the slo­gan “God, coun­try, fam­i­ly and work”—an echo of Por­tu­gal’s for­mer dic­ta­tor António de Oliveira Salazar’s motto—while call­ing for harsh crim­i­nal penal­ties, includ­ing life impris­on­ment and chem­i­cal cas­tra­tion for sex offend­ers. The par­ty has faced legal chal­lenges over alle­ga­tions of pro­mot­ing racism and fas­cist ide­ol­o­gy, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing Ven­tu­ra’s con­tro­ver­sial state­ments tar­get­ing Por­tu­gal’s Roma pop­u­la­tion. How­ev­er, Por­tuguese courts have acquit­ted him of charges of discrimination.

Ven­tu­ra has active­ly cul­ti­vat­ed ties with­in the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance, attend­ing CPAC Hun­gary 2023 along­side fig­ures like Vik­tor Orbán, Tuck­er Carl­son, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Spain’s Vox and France’s Nation­al Ral­ly. Beyond Euro­pean con­nec­tions, CHEGA! has expressed sup­port for Brazil’s Jair Bol­sonaro, with Ven­tu­ra attend­ing Don­ald Trump’s 2025 pres­i­den­tial inau­gu­ra­tion, and the par­ty joined Vik­tor Orbán’s Patri­ots for Europe polit­i­cal group in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment. The par­ty’s suc­cess reflects broad­er right­ward shifts across Europe, cap­i­tal­iz­ing on vot­er frus­tra­tion with cor­rup­tion scan­dals, immi­gra­tion con­cerns, and eco­nom­ic stag­na­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly res­onat­ing with young male vot­ers through effec­tive social media cam­paigns on plat­forms like Tik­Tok, where Ven­tu­ra has amassed over 280,000 followers.

Exter­nal References:
— Chega (polit­i­cal par­ty) — Wikipedia
— 50 years after Por­tu­gal’s dic­ta­tor­ship, the far-right is seduc­ing the coun­try’s youth — Euronews
— Patri­ots’ Chega Records His­toric Gain in Por­tuguese Snap Vote — Hun­gar­i­an Conservative
— Por­tuguese courts vs the racist Chega par­ty — openDemocracy
— Por­tu­gal’s far-right Chega par­ty becomes sec­ond biggest in par­lia­ment — France24

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