Portugal took a turn to the right after the legislative elections that were held this Sunday. The conservative Luís Montenegro won with a slight advantage over the socialists, although far from the majority. He would need the extreme right of Chega, who almost tripled the votes obtained a couple of years ago.
Without a doubt, Portugal turned to the right in these elections after more than eight years in power under António Costa, but a good part of the votes went to the far-right Chega party, EFE reports.
With 99.01% of the votes counted, the Socialist Party (PS) obtained 28.66% of the votes (77 seats) compared to the Democratic Alliance (AD), which obtained 28.63% of the votes, which They add to the 0.86% achieved by the parties that make up that alliance in Madeira, reaching 79 seats.
Chega is third, with 18.06% of the votes (48 seats), followed by the Liberal Initiative, which obtained 5.08% of the votes (8 seats).
Behind them are the Left Bloc, with 4.46% of the votes and five seats; the alliance of communists and greens, CDU-PCP, with 3.30% of the vote and four seats; the environmentalist Livre, with 3.26% and 4 deputies; and the animalist PAN, with 1.93% and one seat.
In any case, neither of the two large Portuguese parties obtains a majority nor will they have one with the support of their preferred partners, because the polls grant an excellent result to Chega’s extreme right. Its controversial leader and candidate, André Ventura, was the great winner of the night, and as soon as the scrutiny began he was quick to proclaim the «end of bipartisanship» in a media appearance. Ventura, who was a seminarian and also a television soccer talk show host, asked Luís Montenegro to form a coalition government: «It’s what Portugal wants«.
Nothing was clear as the results became known, until the leader of the PS, Pedro Nuno Santos, came out to grant victory to AD and announced that he would lead the opposition.
«“Despite the tangential difference between us and AD without underestimating the votes of the electoral circles of our communities (abroad), everything indicates that the result will not allow the PS to be the party with the most votes,” Santos said in his appearance at a Lisbon hotel.
Indeed, the Portuguese electorate has opted for the right just two years after granting an unexpected absolute majority to the socialist Antonio Costa, whose resignation in November (marred by a corruption case) caused the early elections this Sunday.
Now, Nuno Santos’ promise is put to the test. On February 19, in a televised debate, he assured almost three million viewers that he would not prevent Montenegro from governing if the Socialist Party did not win the elections.
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