Portugal held snap parliamentary elections on May 18, with the center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) party winning. However, the party again failed to win a majority and will not be able to form a government on its own.
This is reported by Reuters and the Portuguese broadcaster RTP.
Portugal has held snap parliamentary elections, its third in as many years, after Prime Minister Luiz Montenegro lost a no-confidence vote in March over a scandal involving his familyʼs business.
In the new early parliamentary elections, his AD party, with over 32% of the vote, won 89 seats in parliament out of 230, 9 more than in the previous elections last year.
It is not yet known which party came in second place in the election. The Socialist Party and the far-right Chega party are competing for it — this will be clarified after the results from abroad are counted. If the far-right comes in second place, it will be the first time in almost 40 years that the Socialists have not made it into the top two.
The far-right Chega party has now won 58 seats, eight more than in the previous election.
The Socialists, although they won almost 50 000 more votes than Chega, lost 58 seats in parliament. Previously, they had 78, and after the elections, only 20 remained. This was a serious blow to the party, which has traditionally been one of the two main political forces in Portugal. Their leader Pedro Nuno Santos reported his resignation.
The leader of AD Montenegro has already stated that he will not make any deals with Chega, so he will either have to find another form of support or lead a minority government again, as was the case after the 2024 elections. Political analysts say that the two-party system in the country is coming to an end.
- Chega, an anti-immigration party critical of the current political system, was founded in 2019 by former football commentator André Ventura, known for his harsh comments about ethnic minorities. In 2022, the party became the third largest party in parliament, and in 2024, it was able to quadruple its presence.
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