A center-right alliance is set to rule Portugal again after an election over the weekend, but a hard-right party with an anti-immigrant message has emerged as a powerful force.
In the snap election Sunday, the ruling Democratic Alliance of Prime Minister Luís Montenegro cemented its position as the dominant power in Portugal, allowing it to continue ruling as a minority government.
But the most striking result of the election was the surge of Chega, a hard-right party that won over 22 percent of the vote, positioning it to be a potent movement that is upending the country’s politics. It will also likely put pressure on the government and push its stances on issues like immigration further to the right, analysts say.
The election was triggered after Mr. Montenegro’s government fell in March after losing a no-confidence motion over his business interests.
While the victory Sunday means little change in Portugal’s leadership, “Chega is the real winner” of the election, said António Costa Pinto, a political scientist with the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon.
The election, he said, cemented the evolution of Chega from a protest movement to a powerful political contender in a country that, unlike much of Europe, had largely shunned the hard right until recently.
Portugal has now joined a group of Western European countries including Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, where hard-right parties are the second or close third political forces.
As of Monday, official results showed Mr. Montenegro’s center-right Democratic Alliance with 32 percent of the vote. The center-left Socialist Party and Chega were neck and neck, with the Socialists at around 23 percent and Chega at around 22 percent.
Only a year ago, Chega — which means “enough” in Portuguese — won 18 percent of the vote, and the Socialists 28.
With only a few hundred thousand overseas ballots left to be counted, Mr. Montenegro’s lead was secure. But the remaining votes could be enough to allow Chega to grab second place.
Chega’s leader, André Ventura, declared Sunday that the era of two-sided politics in Portugal, fought between the center right and the center left, “is over.”
He added: “We have done what no other party has ever done in Portugal.”
Mr. Montenegro’s coalition has refused to ally with Chega. “The people want this government and they don’t want any other,” Mr. Montenegro said Sunday night, emphasizing again that he would not join with Chega. “We have our word and we keep our word,” he said.
The snap election was called after Portugal’s Parliament in March ousted the year-old center-right government in a vote of no confidence over accusations of conflicts of interest against Mr. Montenegro, which he denied.
It was the third snap election in Portugal in four years. Mr. Montenegro’s government had been on a shaky footing from the start, given that it controlled far less than a majority in the Parliament — a situation that will continue after Sunday’s election, given the lack of partners acceptable to Democratic Alliance.
Chega is the first hard-right party to gain ground in Portugal since the nationalist dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar ended in 1974.
Analysts say the party has succeeded in part by capitalizing on anti-immigration sentiment and economic resentments in the country. The party has managed to mobilize Portuguese who did not vote before, and has become especially popular with disaffected young people, using an effective social media presence.
Mainstream parties presided over a painful financial crisis in Portugal over a decade ago, and the tough period of austerity that followed. Now although the country has seen an economic revival, many Portuguese say they feel left out.
Young Portuguese often work for low salaries that have not kept up with inflation and that have left them priced out of a housing market that has become unaffordable for many. Large numbers have left the country to seek their fortunes elsewhere in Europe.
Professor Costa Pinto said that Portugal was following the path of other European countries, where it is the hard-right that appeals to many of the grievances of the working class and the lower middle class.
“It’s not the left anymore,” he said. For many in those segments of the population, he added, “Chega is the protagonist of the anti-establishment feelings.”
The Socialist Party, which governed from 2015 to 2024, suffered major losses in the election Sunday, dropping by about five percentage points from last year in what was its worst political performance since the end of the Salazar dictatorship.
Chega made inroads in regions that were historically strongholds of the left, such as the voting districts of Setúbal, Beja and Portalegre. The head of the Socialist Party, Pedro Nuno Santos, announced his resignation on Sunday.
Tiago Carrasco contributed reporting from Lisbon.
Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in Rome.
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