Chega (political party)

Chega (Portuguese: [ˈʃeɣɐ]; officially stylised as CHEGA!; lit. 'Enough!') is a national conservative, right-wing populist political party in Portugal formed in 2019 by André Ventura. It is characterized as being on the far-right of the political spectrum.
Chega won one seat in the Assembly of the Republic in the 2019 election. Since this election, the party has rapidly grown in popularity, gaining significant support for its anti-establishment positions. It was the third most voted party in the elections of 2022 taking 12 seats. It saw a surge in support in the 2024 winning 50 seats, more than quadrupling its previous seat count.
André Ventura was the Social Democratic Party (PSD) candidate for mayor of Loures in the Lisbon District in the 2017 Portuguese local elections. During his campaign, he made comments about Romani people in Portugal that led to a criminal complaint by Left Bloc candidate Fabian Figueiredo, and the withdrawal of the endorsement from the CDS – People's Party. In October 2018, he left the PSD due to disputes with its leadership, set up a new party called Chega, and resigned his seat on Loures city council.
Chega had been initially prevented from registering as a political party as some of the 8,000 signatures presented to the Constitutional Court included minors and police officers. The court accepted the party's registration on 9 April 2019. Ventura made a coalition with the People's Monarchist Party, Citizenship and Christian Democracy and Democracy 21, for which he would be the lead candidate in the 2019 European Parliament election in Portugal. The coalition was approved by the Constitutional Court at the third request as it was rejected the first two times for having a name that included "Chega"; it was finally named Basta!, a synonym of Chega in Portuguese. Ventura garnered controversy for not attending an electoral debate and instead appearing on CMTV in his role as a sports pundit; coalition representative Sofia Afonso Ferreira said that this was due to a late change of the debate's timing by broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal. The coalition targeted one or two seats in the European Parliament but won none, taking 1.49% of the vote.
In the 2019 Portuguese legislative election, Chega won one seat in the Assembly of the Republic, taken by Ventura for the Lisbon constituency. Throughout the 2010s, Portugal was widely seen internationally as an exception to the advance of right-wing populism in Europe.
Chega entered the Legislative Assembly of the Azores with two seats in the 2020 regional election. While the Socialist Party (PS) won the most seats, Chega gave support to a right-leaning government led by José Manuel Bolieiro of the PSD, in exchange for a review of the region's constitutional status. Ricardo Cabral Fernandes of Jacobin reflected that "The Azores are a small region — but this was a big step in the normalization of Chega, and a trial run for a similar solution at a national scale".
Ventura ran for the mainly ceremonial role of President of Portugal in the 2021 election, coming third with 12% of the vote, marginally behind runner-up Ana Gomes of the PS. Ventura celebrated his result as the "first time an openly anti-system party has disrupted the traditional right".
In the 2022 general election, receiving 7.2% of the vote, it increased its seat count to 12, coming third behind the PS and PSD.
In the 2024 general election it received 18.07% of the vote, quadrupling its seat count to a final total of 50.
In the 2024 election, the party was the most voted in the Faro constituency, which corresponds to the Algarve. This was the first time that a third party was the most voted in a district since the Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU) won the Beja District in 1991. The party was the most voted in ten municipalities, five of which were in the Algarve, though its highest percentage was 36.53% in Elvas in the Portalegre District. Portuguese political scientists credited Chega's advances to a protest vote against the two largest parties, and the result in the Algarve to the difficulty that locals face finding housing in the tourism-heavy region.
Luís Montenegro, leader of the PSD and the Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition that took the plurality of votes in the election, refused the prospect of forming a coalition with Chega. When invited to form a government by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, he continued with this position and chose to form a minority government. Ventura said that Chega would vote against the state budget proposed by AD if his party were not included in the government.
Chega considers itself a party with nationalist, conservative and personalist roots. It defends the promotion of an effective judicial system and the decrease of the State's intervention in the economy. The party also presents itself as national conservative and social conservative.
The agenda of Chega is heavily focused on criminality issues, support for the police forces of the country, and the misuse of taxpayers' money in terms of corruption at the top, overstaffing in the civil service at the middle and undeserving welfare recipients at the bottom.
Chega supports life imprisonment sentences and chemical castration for reoffending rapists. Some party members also support the death penalty for crimes such as terrorism or child abuse; in a 2020 party referendum, 44% voted in favor.
Describing itself a "strong proponent of Western civilization", the party positions itself against "Islamist extremism" and proposes stronger border controls and a decrease of "mass and illegal immigration". It has been also described as antiziganist. The party supports integration measures for immigrants and states that all immigrants and foreign residents should be "obliged to respect our rules, rites, customs and traditions." It also supports bilateral agreements and limited immigration from former Portuguese colonies such as Brazil, Portuguese-speaking African countries, Macau and East Timor while taking a more critical stance on non-Western immigration. It also calls for a zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration and for the deportation of immigrants with criminal records or those who are economically inactive. It is also opposed to multiculturalism. The party claim that it rejects xenophobia on its platform. The party opposes illegal immigration and "open door immigration" policies for both Portugal and the external border of the European Union.
The party advocates for a decrease of the tax incidence, considering the current system to be "brutal and aggressive to the ones who work and build wealth, taking away half of their incomes". It additionally defends a reduction of both bureaucracy and the number of bureaucrats, asserting that it is one of the main reasons for the "Portuguese competitive economic backwardness".
Chega's stance on the European Union has been described as Eurosceptic. The party states that it supports the original "four freedoms" principle of free movement of goods, capital, services and people among member states, but argues for a "Europe of sovereign nations united by shared Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian principles" and opposes interference into national political decision making within member states by the EU. It also calls on Portugal to pursue more independent foreign and economic policies from Brussels and rejects compulsory EU migrant and refugee quotas. Furthermore, the party also argues that Portugal should exit the EU if it tries to become a federal state.
On the Russo-Ukrainian War, António Tânger Corrêa, the party's vice president and leading candidate for the 2024 European Parliament election, has been critical of Ukraine, advocating a peace deal that would involve "reinforced cooperation" between Ukraine and Russia in a way that the "Russians feel comfortable". On the other hand, Ventura has said that the defeat of Ukraine will be the defeat of the entire West, and Portugal, as a member of NATO and the European Union, would send troops "in case of extreme need".
Chega supported the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, but party leader Ventura said that the former President of Brazil deserves condemnation if proven to have instigated the 2023 Brazilian Congress attack; Ventura also said that sections of the Brazilian population were right to be frustrated by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's victory over Bolsonaro before the attack.
Chega took a strongly pro-Israel stance on the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, criticising other Portuguese political parties for their stances on the conflict.
The 2020 Chega leadership election was held on 6 September 2020. André Ventura was re-elected with more than 99% of the vote, facing no opposition. The party's statutes have been rejected by the Constitutional Court several times for concentrating excessive power in the hands of Ventura.
In 2020, it was reported that there was a "guerrilla atmosphere" within the party, the result of tensions between the different factions that make up the party.
Chega maintains close links with Vox, a similar party in neighbouring Spain. In July 2020, Chega joined the European Identity and Democracy Party, where its allies included the National Rally (France), Lega (Italy) and the Alternative for Germany. The party has the mutual support of Jair Bolsonaro, the former President of Brazil.
Vote share in the Portuguese legislative elections
Due to its anti-immigration, anti-Islam and populist stances, Chega has been the target of its critics who underline the party's extreme views on various subjects, some of which include the negative comments regarding immigration and minorities, namely the Romani, its opposition to certain aspects of the constitution, its criticism of the judicial leniency regarding serious crimes, and governmental over-expenditure with public services.
The party has also been targeted by critics for reusing a slightly modified version of the motto of the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar "Deus, Pátria, Família" (God, Fatherland, Family). The party has been criticized for having supporters of Salazar within their ranks.
The Global Project against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), an American NGO specialising in the study of extremist movements, warned in a 2023 report that Chega is an "anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-LGBT, anti-Roma, anti-Muslim and conspiratorial party". The organisation also highlights the presence of numerous white supremacists, identitarians and neo-Nazis in the party's ranks. A subsequent investigatory article by GPAHE found evidence of "more extreme" members in the Chega Youth group, including "white supremacists, fans of former dictator Antonio Salazar, and fascist sympathizers" including the President of the Coimbra branch João Antunes, the leader of the Porto branch Francisco Araujo, and Vila Nova de Famalicão leader Joana Pinto Azevedo.
In response to criticism of the mainstream media, party president André Ventura denounced the accusations of racism against his party, claiming that Chega defends equal rights and duties, and that it "doesn't desire a country on which minorities can believe they have more rights than others simply for being minorities". On 27 June 2020, the party organized a protest entitled "Portugal is not racist", where Ventura further mentioned that there is no structural racism in Portugal, and that the political left uses racism as a pretext to foment political agendas.
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