Portugal’s far-right Chega falls well short of expectations in local elections | Portugal

Portugal’s far-right Chega party won its first mayoral seat in local elections, final results showed, but fell well short of expectations and its vote share halved compared to May’s parliamentary elections.

The six-year-old nationalist party, whose name means “Enough,” has seized control of three city halls: São Vicente on the island of Madeira; Central town of Entroncamento; and Albufeira in the south. He received 11.86 percent of the total votes.

But Chega leader André Ventura admitted “we want more” and said Sunday’s elections did not give the party “the victory we wanted”.

Some pre-election polls had put Chega ahead in the national vote for the first time, with hopes that his mix of populist policies, including tighter immigration controls and chemical castration of pedophiles, could help him win 30 municipalities.

Chega won almost 23% of the votes in the parliamentary elections, gaining 60 seats and becoming Portugal’s official opposition party. Analysts said local election results show the party could underperform without Ventura on the ballot.

Ventura, a former columnist and football pundit, put on a brave face and told supporters on Monday morning that the results were a “major victory for Chega”, which had expanded to become “a party with a municipal base”.

It has almost tripled its vote share compared to previous local elections in 2021 and will play a key role in shaping policy in many councils.

Of the three municipalities he captured, he won 49% of the vote in São Vicente, 40.5% in Albufeira in the Algarve, which Ventura called the party’s “stronghold” and the springboard for the “conquest” of Portugal by the far right, and 37% in Entroncamento.

But he was defeated in several municipalities where he had high hopes of winning, including Faro, the Algarve’s largest city, and Sintra outside Lisbon.

Voters in Lisbon returned incumbent mayor Carlos Moedas, who heads a center-right coalition, to office less than six weeks after a fatal funicular accident that killed 16 people, including 11 tourists, and sparked a national outcry.

Moedas, a rising star of the ruling Social Democratic party, has rejected accusations and refused to resign over the September 3 crash, one of Lisbon’s worst tragedies in memory. He received 42 percent of the votes to Socialist candidate Alexandra Leitão’s 34 percent.

The investigation is focusing on whether inadequate maintenance was the cause of problems with the funicular brakes and safety cable. After three national elections in the last two years, Portuguese voters will return to the polls in January for a presidential vote.