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Winning isn’t everything in Lisbon

Andre Ventura, the leader of the party, is casting his vote to elect the new Prime Minister of Portugal at the Parque das Nacoes school in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 10, 2024. Pre-election polls are indicating that the Democratic Alliance (AD) is the likely winner of the legislative elections.

Andre Ventura, the leader of the party, is casting his vote to elect the new Prime Minister of Portugal at the Parque das Nacoes school in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 10, 2024. Pre-election polls are indicating that the Democratic Alliance (AD) is the likely winner of the legislative elections.

Nuno Cruz/NurPhoto via Reuters
Alex Kliment
By Alex KlimentMarch 11, 2024
Alex Kliment
Alex wears a few different caps and tips them all regularly. He writes for the GZERO Daily, works as a field correspondent for GZERO's nationally syndicated TV show GZERO WORLD WITH IAN BREMMER, and writes/directs/voices GZERO's award-winning puppet satire show PUPPET REGIME. Prior to joining GZERO, Alex worked as an analyst covering Russia and broader Emerging Markets for Eurasia Group. He has also written for the Financial Times from Washington, DC, and Sao Paulo Brazil. In his spare time, he makes short films and composes scores for long ones. He studied history and Slavic literature at Columbia and has a Master's from Johns Hopkins SAIS. He's a native New Yorker, a long-suffering Mets fan, and owns too many bicycles.
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Portugal’s election over the weekend had two winners.

The mathematical winner: the center-right Democratic Alliance, which took 79 seats in the 230-seat Parliament, eking out a narrow victory over the left-leaning incumbents of the Socialist Party, with 77.

The zeitgeist winner: the far-right Chega party, which quadrupled its seats to 48. Chega, which means “Enough!” is fiercely anti-immigration and has adopted the “God, Country, Family, and Work” slogan of Portugal’s former dictatorship.

The trouble is that those two winners can’t work together. DA leader Luis Montenegro has ruled out a coalition with Chega which, despite its strong performance, carries the stigma of the country’s fascist past.

That leaves Portugal in its most fragmented and uncertain political state since the end of the dictatorship.

But this isn’t the first time in recent months that a European far-right party has found itself unable to use its kingmaker’s powers. Precisely the same thing happened in the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV party was popular enough to sing at the polls, but too toxic to enter government.

As the EU heads towards European Parliamentary elections, bear this in mind – the recent “resurgence of the right” in Europe is more nuanced than it looks.

elections 2024portuguese electionschegademocratic allianceright wing partieseuropean electionsportugal

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