The Portuguese centre-right party (S&D) and the Liberal party (Renew) were the winners of Sunday's European elections in Portugal, which, unlike most other EU countries, saw the defeat of the far-right Chega party (ID).

The Portuguese centre-left party (S&D) and the Liberal party (Renew) were the winners of Sunday’s European elections in Portugal, which, unlike most other EU countries, saw the defeat of the far-right Chega party (ID).

While the Portuguese electorate voted for the Socialist Party, taking 11 of the 18 districts and outperforming the Democratic Alliance (PSD-CDS-PPM, EPP), which won the general elections three months ago, the party won eight of Portugal’s 21 MEP seats, losing one seat compared to 2019 despite winning more votes overall.

However, the Socialists won by the narrowest of margins over the AD (less than 40,000 votes and one percentage point), which does not give them any hope of returning to power in the short term following a hypothetical political crisis caused by the rejection of the state budget for 2025.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    432·
    5 months ago

    That’s a wierd as hell take.

    The first placed was the supposedly Center Left (Partido Socialista), the second was AD - a cohalition of the Center-Right “Partido Social Democrata” and the conservative party (to were the fascists migrated post Revolution) CDS - the third was the hard neoliberal party (Iniciativa Liberal) and the fourth was Chega.

    The first 3 parties are neoliberals, curiously from softer to harder (if we ignore CDS, the junior party in AD, which is a traditional conservative party rather than neoliberal) and the 4th is towards the Fascist side of the rightwing.

    The Iniciativa Liberal who got 3rd place is almost as far-right as the Chega, it’s just that they’re from the American-style ultra neoliberal side of the far-right whilst Chega is from the Fascist side, so they’re less into moralism, nationalism and statism and more into privatise everything including the National Health Service, remove all regulations and cut the top tax rates - i.e. basically replace the European style social net with the American model on steroids.

    Curiously both Chega and Iniciativa Liberal grew from nothing roughly at the same time, both a few years after Steve Bannon came to Europe with money from several very wealthy Americans very openly to “expand the far-right in Europe”.

    This was not at all a victory against the far right because the two far right parties, Iniciativa Liberal and Chega got more seats than ever before.

    You would need to be seriously deluded to think that a party whose politics are those of the fat-cat rightwing of the American Democrat party (think Finance types and Tech Bros) in an European country like Portugal is to the left of anything but the new Fascists of Chega.