The snap parliamentary election held in Portugal on Sunday marks a sharp escalation of the country’s deepening political and social crisis. It took place amid a wall-to-wall campaign of anti-immigrant hysteria led by the neo-fascist Chega (Enough) party and the conservative Democratic Alliance (AD), whose government announced plans for mass deportations just days before the vote.
Against a backdrop of decades-long austerity, collapsing public services, and wage stagnation—conditions enforced by successive Socialist Party (PS) governments with the backing of the Communist Party (PCP) and the Left Bloc—broad layers of the population were goaded into a Chega vote. Chega’s electoral rise is not the result of the emergence of a mass fascist movement. Rather, it reflects the bankruptcy and reactionary character of the political establishment, in Portugal and across Europe, which only offers a far-right outlet to growing mass discontent with the existing system.
In the elections, Portugal’s ruling right-wing Democratic Alliance (AD), led by acting Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, won the most votes in its second consecutive election victory, yet once again failed to secure a parliamentary majority, marking the third inconclusive national election in as many years. AD won 32.7 percent of the vote and 89 seats, still far from the 116 seats needed to rule. Portugal’s traditional ruling parties cannot command legitimacy or form a durable government after years of social austerity immiserating broad layers of the working class.
In his victory speech, Montenegro boasted tenfold increase in AD’s lead over the PS, from 51,000 in last year’s election to more than half a million votes, and demanded “stability.” “The people do not want another government or another prime minister. We demand to be allowed to govern,” he said.
Behind this appeal lies a reactionary programme: the privatization of the national airline TAP, sweeping pension cuts, intensified assaults on workers’ rights and full alignment with NATO’s war plans against China and Russia. This includes a historic expansion of military spending in preparation for imperialist war abroad, and brutal attacks on democratic and social rights at home in the name of boosting the “competitiveness” of Portuguese capitalism.
The most politically explosive development in the election is the continued ascent of the neo-fascist Chega party, led by the demagogue and former sports commentator André Ventura. Chega demands mass deportations of immigrants, the militarisation of policing and the reintroduction of the death penalty, alongside tax cuts for the wealthy, attacks on pensions and social benefits, and the deepening of austerity. Ventura cloaks this agenda in demagogic appeals to the “forgotten Portuguese,” blaming immigrants and minorities like the Roma for a social crisis produced by capitalism.
Chega received 22.6 percent of the vote, for the first time matching the PS with 58 seats, pending the final allocation of four overseas seats. Since entering parliament in 2019 with just one deputy, Chega has risen uninterruptedly, with 12 seats in 2022, 50 in 2024, and now on the brink of displacing the PS as the country’s second party.
Chega’s breakthrough has been particularly pronounced in southern regions such as Beja, Setúbal, Portalegre and the Algarve, historically strongholds of the PS and the Stalinist PCP. It is a devastating exposure of the anti-working class policies implemented by successive PCP-backed PS governments.
Ventura’s triumphalism was on full display on election night: “Today we can confidently announce that the two-party system in Portugal has come to an end,” he declared. “Chega has become the second-largest political party. Today we settle accounts with history,” he added. He warned ominously, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Forming a new government may well prove difficult. Montenegro has reiterated that he will not enter into a coalition with Chega, calling the party “unreliable” and “unfit to govern.” Chega, for its part, appears no longer interested in propping up AD. Unlike in 2024, Ventura has dropped overtures for an alliance and now openly positions himself as an alternative prime minister. “We are almost at the point where we can govern,” he declared. “Nothing will remain the same in Portugal from today onward.”
Whether or not a formal pact is made, the far right is now at the center of Portugal’s official politics. This marks the first time since the fall of the fascist Estado Novo regime in 1974 that such forces will exert direct influence over the direction of Portuguese politics, either from within government or from outside.
Responsibility for this state of affairs lies with what passes for the left in Portugal. The social democratic PS, the Stalinist-dominated Democratic Unitarian Coalition (CDU), and the Pabloite Left Bloc have suffered their worst combined result since the fall of the dictatorship. Together they received just 30 percent of the vote. Ventura gloated over their humiliation: “Chega surpassed the party of Mário Soares [PS], killed the party of Álvaro Cunhal [PCP], and wiped out the Left Bloc.”
The PS, once the dominant political party of post-Carnation Revolution Portugal, received just 23 percent of the vote, down from 78 to 58 seats. Only in 1985 and 1987 did it fare worse. Shortly after the results were confirmed, PS leader Pedro Nuno Santos resigned as party secretary general.
The Pabloite-backed Left Bloc, which once held 19 seats and served as a critical prop for the PS government during its 2015–2019 term, collapsed to a mere 2 percent of the vote and retained just one seat for its leader Mariana Mortágua. The CDU, led by the PCP, secured just 3 percent of the vote and retained three seats, no better than last year. Both were overtaken by Livre (Free), a split from the Left Bloc formed in 2011. Livre gained 4 percent of the vote and now holds six seats.
These parties are widely despised for their direct role in supporting PS-led austerity governments. The PS governed from 2015 to 2024, enforcing EU austerity, dismantling labor protections, and supporting NATO’s imperialist war drive in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The PCP and Left Bloc supported the PS government through the so-called “Geringonça” agreement, providing parliamentary backing for sweeping social attacks.
This alliance imposed brutal cuts to public services, oversaw surging housing costs, suppressed workers’ strikes, including deploying the military against striking truckers, and funneled billions of euros into corporate bailouts and military spending. Even after the formal alliance ended, both parties continued to support PS budgets, its “herd immunity” COVID policies and its backing for NATO’s war in Ukraine.
In 2023, the PS Prime Minister Antonio Costa defended the start of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, stating “Israel has every right to defend itself by acting militarily against Hamas, but respecting the civilian populations of Palestine.” Under his government, Portugal issued export licenses for military goods to Israel totaling over €12.5 million.
Only in 2022, did Bloco (Left Bloc) and PCP vote against the PS budget in a belated attempt to salvage their reputations, amid mass working class opposition, expressed in a strike wave spanning various sectors including education, healthcare, transportation and public administration. Notably, this wave of strikes in late 2022 set the stage for a continued escalation into the following year, with the number of workers involved in strikes across all sectors surging by 288 percent in 2023.
The betrayals of these struggles have created the conditions for the far right’s advance. As wages stagnate and public services crumble, Portugal faces a deep housing crisis driven by speculative capital and mass tourism. Housing prices rose 9 percent last year, while rents in Lisbon reached their highest levels in three decades. Meanwhile, the average monthly wage stands at just €1,200 before tax, and the minimum wage at €870, among the lowest in Western Europe.
Since the start of 2025, Portuguese workers have once again mounted a determined response to deteriorating conditions, with strike activity spanning nearly every sector. In the first quarter alone, 224 strike notices were filed, most over stagnant wages. Participation has been massive, with tens of thousands joining actions ranging from small factory walkouts to nationwide shutdowns.
These included a national strike by educators in private social solidarity institutions, a 24-hour rail stoppage by CP ticket inspectors, rolling strikes by train drivers and other rail workers, a national nurses’ strike, a general strike of civil service and public sector workers, a three-day walkout by Teijin autoworkers and a two-hour stoppage at the AUNDE Portugal textiles factory.
The escalating strike wave reveals the true social force capable of halting the advance of fascism: the working class. Their actions express the immense social power that lies in the collective resistance of the working class in Portugal, across Europe and internationally. However, this movement needs political leadership and revolutionary perspective.
The critical task now is the building of a Portuguese section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). Only the working class, unified across all national, racial and ethnic lines, armed with a clear political programme and revolutionary leadership, can stop the march to fascism and open the way forward for socialism.