Version imprimableAll the parties to the left of the PS recorded their lowest results. Livre (European Greens) saw a slight increase, the Communists (PCP) lost about 20,000 votes and reached their lowest level, and the Left Bloc lost more than half of the votes it had obtained in the 2024 elections, electing only one MP, Mariana Mortágua.
Racist agenda
The far right has conquered most of the southern districts of the country, traditional bastions of the left, and has gained ground among its voters. It is in the countryside and former industrial areas that Chega finds the most support, with a programme of anti-immigrant and anti-Gypsy resentment that manages to mobilise votes.
In the context of a crisis provoked by the Prime Minister himself — who kept a personal company to accept company contracts (against his exclusive duties) — the right managed to put the issue of immigration at the center of the debate, which dominated xenophobic discourse and attracted votes. Immigrants have become the scapegoat for the housing crisis caused by speculation and for the problems of health systems, education and public services that are underfunded and attacked by private interests. Moreover, they have become the centre of a culture war that dragged the Socialist Party toward a right-wing stance on the issue.
Militarism, authoritarianism and techno-policing
The race to war, under Washington’s leadership, dominates European politics and guides the European Union’s economic project. In addition to immigration, militarist rhetoric also marked the elections. Most parties have reached a consensus on loyalty to NATO, increased military spending and escalation of armaments, leaving the anti-capitalist parties isolated.
With the far right overtaking the Socialist Party for the first time, Portuguese politics is truly entering a new phase. Michael Löwy said a few years ago that the left had not foreseen the "brown wave" in Europe, the United States and Brazil. Today, we can no longer say that we were not warned.
The authoritarian drift in the context of the crisis of capitalist accumulation is accompanied by forms of technological domination, through digital socialization and the platformization of labor, with algorithms controlled by an all-powerful techno-oligarchy at the service of the far right.
Convergence and unity resistance
In this national and international political panorama, and with more than two-thirds of parliamentary deputies sitting on the benches of the right and far right, it becomes possible for the first time in 50 years to revise the Constitution without the participation of the Socialist Party. The fight against this project of revenge on April 25, 1974 calls for broad convergences, including in the perspective of the presidential election of January 2026.
It is imperative to resist immediately, but also to build a strong left wing to fight back. The weakened Socialist Party will have only one candidate for its leadership, José Luís Carneiro, a former minister linked to the right wing of the party, who will tend to facilitate the viability of the right-wing government on the grounds of removing the far right from power. This context, if confirmed, will make Chega — with 22% of the vote the second largest party in Parliament — the main reference for the opposition.
The municipal elections are on the immediate horizon. The risk is the transformation of Chega into a more territorially anchored force, the continuation of the shift to the right and the disappearance of the PCP as a governing force (it is still in the lead in 19 municipalities). The Left Bloc is committed to programming agreements for convergences on the left, whether with the PS in the capital to defeat Carlos Moedas, or to assert municipal alternatives on the left, whenever possible with the PCP, Livre and the PAN (an environmentalist pro-animal welfare party).
28 May 2025
Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.
