In the coming weeks, Portugal will commemorate the fifty years of the “carnation revolution”.
This anniversary coincides with a surge of populists in the national political landscape.
During the legislative elections held on March 10, the far-right party Chega ("Enough", in Portuguese) led by André Ventura, 41, more than doubled its score by obtaining 18% of the vote.
This anti-system formation is driven by its discourse against corruption and minorities, as well as by a certain nostalgia for the Salazarist dictatorship.
Fifty years ago, at the beginning of 1974, this authoritarian, conservative and nationalist regime was experiencing its last moments.
Within the army, anger is brewing.
The country is increasingly weakened by the colonial wars led by Portugal in Africa between 1961 and 1974 (Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau) and by poverty and underdevelopment.
Some of the officers began to turn their backs on power and created the Armed Forces Movement (MFA).
The vice-chief of the general staff, António de Spínola, published a book in February which had the effect of a bomb.
In "Portugal and the Future", he advocates the democratization of the country and expresses the idea that the solution to the colonial problem involves other means than the continuation of the war.
On March 16, a group of officers decided to intervene.
With a few units, they advance towards Lisbon but their attempt to bring down the President of the Council, Marcelo Caetano, the successor of Salazar who died four years earlier, fails.
“This regiment rose up in a rather disorderly and disorganized manner,” summarizes historian Yves Léonard, member of the Sciences Po Paris History Center.
“But it was kind of a rehearsal before April 25. It was a pretty useful cue.”
A few weeks later, a second military uprising brought down the regime and put an end to the single party.
On April 25, the MFA, led by young captains, seized strategic points in a few hours.
In Lisbon, despite calls from insurgent soldiers urging the population to stay at home, jubilant crowds take to the streets.
A florist distributes carnations to the soldiers who slip this flower into their cannon, thus giving a name to this revolution.
"A 48-year dictatorship fell with relatively little bloodshed. There were only four civilian deaths, who were killed by the political police," describes historian Victor Pereira, researcher at the Institute of contemporary history of the New University of Lisbon.
A soldier member of the Armed Forces Movement brandishes flowers at the end of his rifle, the day after the "carnation revolution", April 26, 1974 in Lisbon.
AFP
The Portuguese political exception
General António de Spínola receives the surrender of the government and is chosen to exercise the office of President of the Republic.
In a rather unprecedented way, a military putsch carrying a democratic project (establishment of a civilian government, organization of free elections and decolonization) brought down an authoritarian regime.
For two years, however, the country experienced strong instability, while the different political currents all aspired to power with six provisional governments, until the establishment of the first elections and the adoption of the Portuguese constitution.
For almost fifty years, Portugal presented itself as a model of democracy, alternating between right and left.
For years, the far right has been absent from political debate, making Portugal an exception in Europe.
“There were a few nostalgic for Salazar and skinhead activists, but from an electoral point of view, it had absolutely no weight,” explains Victor Pereira.
"Why was there the extreme right in Spain, France or the Netherlands, but not in Portugal? One of the answers was to say that there had been 48 years of dictatorship and that people remembered the political prisons, the misery and the concentration of power in the hands of Salazar."
Read alsoThe meteoric rise of the far right in the legislative elections puts an end to the Portuguese exception
But in 2019, the first cracks were felt.
By obtaining 1.29% of the votes in the legislative elections, the Chega party allowed its leader, André Ventura, to enter Parliament.
The far-right MP, a law professor who made himself known as a polemicist on television sets devoted to football, then led a campaign under the Salazarist slogan “God, homeland, family and work” – all by avoiding positioning himself as the heir of the former dictator, as Yves Léonard explains: "Ventura is very smart. He is very careful with the terms he uses. He does not want to get caught because of an impromptu declaration. Chega does not openly claim to be Salazarism, even less fascism, so as not to fall under the ban. Concerning the borrowings from Salazarism, he only retains a part of them, notably the splendor passed from Portugal, but while adding that Salazar caused the country to miss the train of economic modernity. For him, Portugal does not need a Salazar, but a Ventura".
The historian Victor Pereira also believes that André Ventura plays on the nostalgic fiber of part of the population: "He is critical of decolonization, which led to the loss of the empire and the return to Portugal of around 600 000 white settlers. His speech is to say that April 25 did not bring solutions to the country, that there is corruption and that the different governments are not there for the people.
Chega leader André Ventura (dark suit) during an electoral campaign, January 28, 2022, in Lisbon.
Armando Franca, AP
An anti-corruption speech
Portugal has indeed been shaken by a series of corruption scandals which led to the resignation of the former socialist Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, after an investigation into influence peddling targeting his chief of staff.
Promising to "clean house", Chega rode on this anti-corruption dynamic, while also adopting a speech against immigration and for "border control", in a country where the unemployment rate jumped by 23% in one year. year.
A positioning that hit the mark, particularly among young people.
"There is a sort of disenchantment with the political system. Ventura stepped into the breach by saying stop to bipartisanship and to those who hit the till. A part of the youth is quite sensitive to this speech because she did not experience the old dictatorship regime", analyzes Yves Léonard, specialist in the contemporary history of Portugal.
“It must also be emphasized that it is the extreme right 2.0. Chega has a culture of social networks and they are very strong on that.”
With humorous videos and shocking phrases that quickly go viral, Chega has crossed the 200,000 subscriber mark on TikTok while its rivals, who arrived much more recently on this social network, barely reached a thousand subscribers.
Like his models Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, André Ventura masters the codes of continuous information and media buzz.
He is part of a global populist trend and appears regularly with the leaders of the European far right such as the French Marine Le Pen, the Italian Matteo Salvini or the Spaniard Santiago Abascal, who are also on the rise .
The former sports commentator has already predicted that Chega will win the next elections, whether "in six months or one or two years".
Andre Ventura and Marine Le Pen during a joint press conference at the Portuguese parliament, November 24, 2023. AP - Armando Franca
In the meantime, 48 deputies from his party will enter the Portuguese parliament as the country prepares to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its revolution.
Two years ago, during the "freedom day" commemorated every year in the Assembly, the Chega party had already disrupted the festivities, as Yves Léonard recounts: "The 12 deputies got up and left the hemicycle when the parliamentarians sang the anthem of the 'carnation revolution', 'Grandôla, vila morena'".
Now four times more numerous, they should not fail to make another splash.
“There is a sort of irony of history. Forty-eight far-right deputies will be present for an event marking the end of 48 years of dictatorship,” underlines Victor Pereira.
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