By Satyaki Chakraborty
In Portugal, the full right wing turn of the country’s politics is complete with the centre right Democratic Alliance (AD) emerging as the largest single party with 91 seats, followed by the far right Chega with 60 seats putting the Socialist Party (PS) at third position at 58 seats. The minority ruling AD led by the Prime Minister Luis Montenegro is expected to continue his minority government rule in the house of 230 where 116 seats are needed for a majority.
In the national elections held on May 18, the ruling AD got 89 seats, while the Socialist Party (PS) and Chega both got 58 seats each. But after the results came from the overseas on four seats on May 28, it was found that Chega and AD have got two seats each raising their respective total tally by two seats each. In the process, the Socialist Party which ruled for years before 2022 elections, was displaced from the position of the main opposition party even.
“It is a big victory,” said Chega founder and leader Andre Ventura, claiming that it “marks a profound change in the Portuguese political system”. Chega is very keen to join the new government but the DA prime minister is persistent that DA will not have any relationship with the far right Chega. PM Montenegro wants to run the government the same way as the leader of the minority government. The President is expected to give consent to the DA request.
Support for Chega has grown in every general election since the party was founded in 2019 by Ventura, a former trainee priest who later became a television football commentator. Before that the Socialist Party ruled for long and the Communist Party with its strong base among the trade unions were part of the PS led coalition. The right wing shift took place with the decline of the Socialist Party like many other such parties in Europe.
Chega won 1.3 percent of the vote in a general election the year it was founded, giving it a seat in parliament — the first time a far-right party had won representation in Portugal’s legislature since a coup in 1974 toppled a decades-long rightist dictatorship.
Chega became the third-largest force in parliament in the next general election in 2022 and quadrupled its parliamentary seats last year to 50, emerging as the challenger to both DA and the PS. Chega is staunchly pro-Trump. The leader Ventura attended US President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 this year. He is part of the world’s far right grand including the former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, present Argentinian President as also leaders of AfD in Germany, Marie Le Pen in France and Nicole Faraze in Britain.
While, the Portugal president will complete the formalities of government formation after all the results for the 230 seats in Parliament are out now, Poland will witness the run off Presidential elections on June 1 which will be watched closely by the European Union. In Poland, the pro-European centrist Rafał Trzaskowski and historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the populist right, have each secured about 30% of the vote in a nail-bitingly close first round of Poland’s presidential election held on May 18 this year.
Europe is going through an agonizing period. The Liberals are in retreat though in many countries, there is some unity against the far right. Trump’s coming to power for the second time has given boost to European far right. The Poland presidential polls run off on June 1 will show the latest trend in this important East European nation. (IPA Service)
