35.63 abstention 2.3 spoilt and blank ballots i.e. 62% positive ballots of registered voters.

116 seats needed for majority which no single party achieved

All right wing parties = 160. All left (PS plus left of PS) = 69

Four seats still to be allocated

In the restaurant where we were watching the projections as they came in, the large Portuguese family next to us barely raised their heads from the excellent fried bacalhao they were enjoying. Nor did the staff seem particularly interested. You can understand. This was the third election in as many years and the last two had been triggered by corruption scandals surrounding first the PS (Socialist Party) prime minister and then Montenegro the incumbent AD (Democratic Alliance) leader.

Some years back the PS government was kept in office by the main left wing parties who forced through some pro-working class policies. Since then the right of centre and left of centre governments have implemented similar pro-business programmes. The health service has been starved of resources, pensions have been hit and the housing crisis has worsened.

Perhaps the main winner of the night was the neo-fascist Chega (Enough) party led by ex-sports pundit, Ventura. It has achieved parity in seats with the PS. Posters for the various celebrations of the revolutionary uprising of 1974, which overthrew Europe’s longest fascist dictatorship, were still on the walls of Lisbon when this historic result was announced. Chega is uncritical of that regime and is unsupportive of the carnation revolution.

Like Farage, Meloni or Le Pen’s parties its main mobilizing issue is anti-migrant racism. Chega wants to remove migrants. It also attacks abortion, gender and LBGTQ rights and attacks the idea of net zero. Since our last visit here ten years ago it is noticeable how diverse the big towns have become. Immigration from former colonies and elsewhere has accelerated in that period. You notice how many of the low paid security and hospitality jobs are done by black people.

A lot of Chega’s propaganda is also based on a populist rejection of the mainstream parties. One of their posters focused on ‘50 years and the same old crowd so give us a turn’. In the eyes of many electors it is unsullied by government office. The current right of centre coalition has maintained a veto on any agreement with Chega. As we have seen in Britain and France what happens is that the mainstream parties start to take up their policies. So during the campaign the AD has promised to kick out tens of thousands of migrants.

It will be interesting to see if the governing coalition maintains the cordon sanitaire or comes to an agreement with Chega. If there were to be a change in the PDS leadership then that could occur as there are voices within the party who would favour a deal.

The AD increased its share by over 3 percentage points and won an additional ten seats but still has no overall majority – it is short by 27 seats. The support it can get from the neoliberal pro-business IL (Liberal Initiative) party is not enough since it only increased its seats by one to nine. The AD’s junior partner, the CDS has been hollowed out by the rise of Chega.

However, that the AD increased its support and is seen as the victor, being the biggest single party, has strengthened its position and it is likely to continue as a minority government. Nevertheless, its future is at the mercy of the PS and Chega not both voting no confidence. This is precisely what triggered this election. So the political situation is still relatively volatile.

A few years ago when the progressive agreement between the PS government and the two main radical parties the Communists and the BE (Left Bloc) fell apart the PS leadership went forward with a notion that it could win and govern with an absolute majority. No agreement was required with parties to its left. This strategy is in ruins as it barely managed to outscore the vote share of Chega. The PS support for financial orthodoxy and a partnership with business has not enthused its traditional base. Then the recurrent episodes of corruption further alienate its support.

A fairly decent Proportional Representation (PR) system here means that parties to the left of the PS, whether those with revolutionary or green roots, have a chance of democratic representation in the institutions. It also means that all parties have some resources for getting their message across during elections. You see posters everywhere for all the groups. On the TV, too, the small parties get a chance to be heard.

However, this does not resolve the political problem of building an ecosocialist alternative to the bankrupt leadership of the PS. Votes to the left of the PS were distributed between four parties.

In this election there has been a significant decrease in the support for the BE which has in the past hovered around double figures and regularly did better than the traditional Communist left. It looks like some of its support has transferred to Livre (Free), a party set up by a former BE leader, Rui Tavares. Ecological issues were part of the reason for this split. His group did not join the radical left grouping (GUE) in the European parliament but sits with the Greens. Its orientation is less critical of the EU than the BE is, as was shown in one of the TV debates.

One of the strategic questions going forward is how this left – which still is more than ten percent of the electorate – could combine to build an ecosocialist resistance to the right and the fascists as well as develop an alternative to the PS.

Art Book Review Books Capitalism China Climate Emergency Conservative Government EcoSocialism Elections Europe Fascism Film Film Review France Gaza Imperialism Israel Keir Starmer Labour Party Marxism Palestine pandemic Protest Russia Solidarity Statement Trade Unionism Ukraine United States of America War