Populists stir up Portuguese politics

Portugal is set for “months or even years of political instability” after both the main parties fell well short of a majority in last weekend’s election”, says Joana Ramiro in The Guardian. The big story, though, was the “unprecedented” victory for the far-right Chega party, led by André Ventura (pictured), which gained 18% of the vote and quadrupled its parliamentarians from 12 to 48.

The centre-right Social Democratic party, which narrowly came first, has ruled out any deals with Chega, but the question “is now how much strength is left in that cordon sanitaire” – it is hard to see how there can be a stable governing coalition that does not include the party. Indeed, Chega’s attempts to become part of Portugal’s new government seem to have been rebuffed for now, but there “may be no way to stop it from having a sizeable influence on legislation”, says The Economist. Without a majority in Parliament, the incoming Social Democrat administration “will have to fight for every bill, with the first big test being the budget for 2025”.

Part of Chega’s success is down to public anger against “a sclerotic economy, a bureaucratic gravy train and a prime minister who resigned” over corruption charges, says Melanie Phillips in The Times. Its success is also, however, part of a growing resistance in the West to “large-scale immigration” and the fact that the mainstream parties of both right and left have stopped “representing anyone but their own echo chamber”. Many of the populists riding that wave may well be driven by a less than savoury agenda, but the political disruption they are fomenting “is becoming the norm”.