The evolution of Chega’s positions on labor issues between 2020 and 2025 deserves attention, especially for what it could mean, if it represents a consistent path and not just a tactical maneuver.
Changes in position are not, in themselves, surprising. In 2020, Chega was still taking shape and was ideologically heterogeneous. Ventura was already Ventura, but the party was not as focused on his figure as it is today. The internal “purges” that removed dissidents had not yet occurred. And, in fact, it was not the only party in Portuguese democracy to zigzag. What makes this case relevant is what it can announce: Chega’s approach to the model of other right-wing populist parties in Europe, which have won over a significant part of the traditional left-wing electorate through an illiberal, protectionist and anti-globalization discourse – and highly appealing to those who have been left out of the economic benefits of recent decades and do not feel represented by the left.
The French example is illustrative. An important segment of the electorate that, until the 1990s, voted for the French Communist Party (PCF) gradually migrated to the National Front. Today, Marine Le Pen’s National Regroupment has a solid base among the “white” working class, who feel abandoned by the left. As historian Yvan Gastaut recalled, in an interview with RFI, in 2017, Marine Le Pen “regained the PCF electorate”. “National preference” – a slogan the PCF itself has used in the past – has become especially attractive to the poorest workers. And it is precisely this model that Chega seems to want to replicate: presenting itself as the “right that defends workers”, occupying a political space that the left left vacant and that the traditional right never claimed. The conquest of a solid electoral base, which Chega does not yet have, inevitably involves here. Without this base, it will be difficult to assert itself as a major national party in the medium and long term.
Chega’s results in Alentejo and on the outskirts of Lisbon and Porto, former communist strongholds, point in this direction. But, as in other countries, the appeal of right-wing populism is not limited to the working classes. A part of the middle class – made up of public servants and private sector workers who have lost purchasing power in the last 15 or 20 years – is also attracted to this discourse. The so-called “left-wing sociological majority”, so often mentioned, actually corresponds to a majority preference for a model that combines economic freedom with social protection. More than social democrats or democratic socialists, the Portuguese have been voting, over decades, as Christian democratic voters, in the original sense of the term.
For half a century, this majority found representation in the PS and PSD, which consolidated a European-style social market economy in Portugal. Therein lies the center of gravity of Portuguese politics: the majority of voters reject both a completely liberalized and deregulated economy and the radical models of the extreme left. With this favorable context, if in recent decades the PS and PSD had managed to promote more economic growth, improve living conditions, combat corruption and control the incompetence and greed of some of their staff, the panorama would be different. Parties like Chega or IL would hardly have emerged and flourished. Its rapid growth was due to the mistakes that the two major parties of our rotation movement made in recent decades, losing the trust of many thousands of Portuguese people.
The difference between Chega and IL, in this area, is that, on an economic level, the former has an easier time capturing votes among left-wing voters and among the middle class disillusioned with the “centrão”. IL, in order to grow in this space, will first have to convince voters of the merits of economic liberalism, a difficult task in a country where this political tradition arrived late and never gained deep roots.
Meanwhile, the political context had an important development this Wednesday. With the dismissal of the Spinumviva case, the great dark cloud that hung over the AD Government disappeared. Luís Montenegro’s Executive now has reinforced stability conditions, making less plausible a scenario that was considered by many in recent months, regarding the possible emergence of a new PSD leader who would be willing to open the door to an understanding with Ventura. This factor changes the political tableau: if Chega wants to grow, it will have to do so on its own, by opposing it, winning over voters and consolidating a social base that it does not yet have – and not waiting for the PSD to pave its way to power. It is in this context that this apparent turning point for Chega occurs. We will see if this course is to be maintained.
Director of News Diary