Democratic Alliance leader Luis Montenegro announced his party's victory in the elections (French)

The results of the parliamentary elections that took place yesterday, Sunday, in Portugal overthrew the ruling Socialist Party after 8 years in power, and the far-right Chiga (Kifaya) party also made progress in its results.

The Democratic Alliance, which represents the center-right, obtained 29.5% of the votes, narrowly ahead of the Socialist Party, which represents the center-left, which obtained 28.7%, after more than 99% of the votes had been counted as of early Monday.

The performance of the Chiga party, which was founded 5 years ago and led by former television sports critic Andre Ventura, improved from just over 7% of the vote in 2022 to about 18% in this election.

Ventura focused his election campaign on accusing the two main centrist parties that have shared power since the establishment of the democratic system of being "two sides of the same coin that must be fought," and he repeated his attacks against foreigners, especially the Roma minority.

Attacking refugees was one of the most prominent issues that Yemeni extremist leader Andre Ventura focused on in his (French) election campaign.

Three months before the European elections, Portugal's poll confirmed that the far right is on the rise across the Old Continent, as Italian and Dutch voters showed.

The Chiga Party's representation is set to rise from 12 to 46 seats in the 230-seat national parliament.

The Democratic Alliance will get at least 79 seats and the Socialists will get 77 seats.

Victory and admission of defeat

Democratic Alliance leader Luis Montenegro announced his party's victory in the elections, while his socialist rival, Pedro Nuno Santos, admitted defeat and announced that he would join the opposition.

The Socialist Party has been in power since late 2015, but most opinion polls indicated that it was lagging behind the Democratic Alliance since the resignation of Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa amid corruption investigations that have been underway for 4 months.

The performance of the socialist government was also harmed by inflation and a defect in health services and schools, in addition to a severe housing crisis, despite achieving success in other files such as reforming public financial resources, growth exceeding the European average, and unemployment at its lowest levels.

Forming a government is likely to be difficult, as none of the main competitors have announced their desire to work with Chiga, who is in third place.

Also, forming a “grand coalition” between the two main parties is almost impossible, as they are seen to have political differences that cannot be overcome.

Given the tense trajectory ahead, many observers expect political stalemate and new elections in the summer.

Source: Agencies