The Democratic Alliance, led by the Social Democrats, defeated the Socialist Party for the first time in eight years, but its chances of forming a majority remained slim, according to euronews.
The Democratic Alliance, led by the Social Democrats, won 79 seats in the 230-seat National Assembly, Portugal’s Parliament, after all votes were counted. Meanwhile, the Socialist Party, which has been in power for the past eight years, received 77 seats.
The decisive votes will now come from abroad to allocate the last four seats in parliament, with the counting likely to take more than a fortnight.
The Chega (Enough) party came third with 48 seats, a landmark result that posed an unprecedented challenge to conventional politics. Minor parties won the remainder of the vote in an election in which turnout rose to 66 per cent, the highest level in Portugal in recent years.
The minority government, with fewer than 116 seats in parliament, is at the mercy of opposition parties as it tries to pass legislation. Chega’s support could be key to a functioning Social Democrat government.
Young, five-year-old Chega’s party has tripled its number of votes since the last election in 2022. Party leader André Ventura declared:
One thing is for sure tonight, the two-party system in Portugal is finished.
Ventura insisted that the Social Democrats should join forces with Chega in parliament to create a majority, but Social Democrat leader Luís Montenegro stated that he would honour his election promise to keep Chega out and refused to negotiate a power-sharing deal with the party. He declared that he expected to form a government on his own.
He also stated that he was ready to abandon some of his party’s most controversial proposals, such as chemical castration for some sex criminals and the introduction of life imprisonment, if it would allow his party to be included in a possible governing alliance with other parties.
Chega’s campaign relied on the fight against corruption, as bribery scandals triggered early elections after former Socialist leader António Costa resigned in November amid a corruption probe after serving as prime minister for eight years. Costa has not been accused of any crime, but the case appears to have damaged the Socialists’ reputation.
Besides bribery, the electorate’s discontent has been fuelled by factors including low wages and the high cost of living, exacerbated by rising inflation and interest rates last year, as well as by the housing crisis and failures in public health care.
The Social Democrats were also embarrassed shortly before the election campaign by a corruption scandal that led to the resignation of two prominent party officials.
