Portuguese democracy is at stake in the coming years. André Ventura, the leader of Chega, the far-right party that has just obtained shocking results in the March 10 elections, has a project for the country: it is about reaching the leadership of the government and, then not letting go of that bite for decades. This is what he calls "the government of a generation". The goal is, according to Ventura, to leave as inheritance "a country equal to the one our ancestors left us one day".
Half a century after the carnation revolution, Portugal runs the risk of drifting towards a mitigated democracy, what today is usually called an illiberal regime. Ventura will have enough to continue his way until he wins some generals and, after that, to control the springs of the Portuguese political system. On the recent election night, when he celebrated obtaining 18.1% of the votes, the leader of Chega announced that this was "the last step" in his rise to power.
Ventura already has great influence in the State security forces, which he treats with great care. When the representative of a police force, where discontent abounds due to salary reasons, threatened in an interview to sabotage the electoral act by not guaranteeing the participation of the police in the elections, a necessary element for the transport mechanics of ballot boxes and votes, it was Ventura who assured, with sufficiency, that "this would not happen". He said it with aplomb, almost as if he was the one commanding the security forces.
After April 25, 1974, the Portuguese Communist Party also tried to appropriate the revolution, once the conservative counterattack of March 11, 1975 had failed. The international scene at the time allowed it. We were still in the cold war and half of Europe belonged to the Warsaw Pact. The idea that Portugal gave rise to a European Cuba was no nonsense.
The communist project failed mainly for three reasons: first, Portuguese society had tasted mild developmentism in the final phase of the Estado Novo, at the beginning of the seventies, and was more interested in welfare and consumerism than in redemptive collectivisms. Second, communism emerged in Lusitanian culture as a strange body, something similar to a Soviet UFO personified in the enigmatic figure of Álvaro Cunhal, made of steel from Moscow. Third, the other major left-wing party, the Socialists, confronted communist pretensions and its leader, Mário Soares, transformed into a champion of democracy and freedom.
The Communist Party, which in its heyday reached 19% in some general elections, ended up cornered. It is true that he has done a great job in some town halls and in the unions, he has influenced the course of Portuguese politics, especially during the first cabinets of António Costa, but, after the fiery years of the revolution, he did not to rule the country again. Today he is still in his corner, from where he is reluctant to clearly condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine because he considers that Putin had reasons for this military operation.
Half a century has passed since the revolution, and Lusitanian democracy is playing with Chega. Again, the international outlook is favorable: we have Trump, Orbán, Meloni, Milei and company. There is a radical right-wing wave trying to impose its tide on the entire Western world. However, at this moment the fight to save Portuguese freedom will be much tougher than in the seventies, also for three reasons.
First, the country has not yet lifted its head from an endemic economic modesty. Many people have hard lives. If there were no social benefits, 4.4 million Portuguese would be at risk of poverty, in a nation of 10 million. Second, Chega is not, like Soviet-inspired communism, a foreign body in Lusitanian culture. Its roots sink into the humus of an ancient nationalist traditionalism that has already had many faces throughout our history, including those of King Sebastià and Salazar. Third, its leader, André Ventura, an effective populist who was actually an honor roll student and university student with an illustrious career, has already managed to connect with a considerable part of the public. A genuine veneration is springing up around him. In addition, at 41 years old, he has an enormous capacity for work. Ventura is no joke.
A people tired of suffering because of the strictures of Portuguese life, people, on the other hand, aware of the dangers of today's world, see in Chega and Ventura a hope and a refuge. This is how many authoritarianisms were born. Throughout the rest of this year, Portugal will be one of the boards where the great game between true freedom and attenuated democracy is played that will mark the future of the West.
Avoiding the ascension of Chega involves, on the one hand, working to solve once and for all the economic and social issues that fuel the extreme right, listening to the suffering that resonates in their votes; and on the other hand, the democratic right must bravely confront Chega. Montenegro, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, has the role that Mário Soares played before Cunhal in the hot summer of 1975. At the moment, AD's distance from Ventura's party seems more like an exercise in political tactics than a result of a true conviction. The time has come for this conviction.
In Portuguese history, the times of freedom, if we count them, have been shorter than the centuries of oppression. Our past plays against us and in favor of Ventura. We have to win another half century of democracy.
