A day after the electoral results in the emigration circles were announced—where two deputies from Chega were elected, making it the second-largest political force in the Assembly of the Republic with 60 seats, ahead of the PS with 58—two voters with differing opinions and opposing sentiments were interviewed in Geneva, following André Ventura’s party’s significant victory in Switzerland, with 45.72% of the votes, far ahead of the PSD/CDS coalition (13.67%) and the PS (8.69%).
At one of the many gathering points for Portuguese people in Geneva, the Casa do Benfica, António Botelho disclosed that he was among the 24,533 Portuguese voters in Switzerland who voted for Chega, believing that “it’s time for change.”
“There’s a lot of dissatisfaction. Why not give someone with new ideas a chance? Whether they deliver on them, I don’t know, but they should be given the opportunity,” he said, referring to André Ventura.
António Botelho admitted that he voted for Chega “partly out of a sense of rebellion, due to what the governments of both PS and PSD have done,” complaining that emigrants feel forgotten. “People are completely fed up,” he stated.
When asked how, as an emigrant, he could vote for a party with an anti-immigration stance, this Chega voter rejected that label: “I don’t think it’s a party against immigration. It’s against uncontrolled immigration. And here, it’s controlled because we work here,” he argued.
Now that Chega is the main opposition force in the Portuguese parliament, António Botelho considers it “a mistake to marginalize” Ventura’s party and argues that “the PSD should dialogue with Chega just as it does with the PS.”
In a Portuguese café close to the Casa do Benfica, a member of the Associação 25 de Abril (A25A) committee in Geneva, Ivane Domingues, expressed regret over the success of a party that denies the achievements of the 1974 revolution and seems nostalgic for the times of the Estado Novo.
“Chega was very effective here, finding it easy to reach people, mainly because they, or he, as the party is André Ventura, wave structural biases like flags and have no problem using arguments disconnected from reality, such as rhetoric about immigrants receiving subsidies and rising crime. It’s very hard to combat that,” she said.
Highlighting that she took the time to read Chega’s electoral program, noting the series of “absolutely unrealistic measures, particularly concerning the State Budget,” Ivane Rodrigues believes that “one of the big problems” is what she describes as the current “news diet,” often served by social media and “consumed” without any critical analysis.
“The greatest safeguard of democracy is education, so people make informed decisions. Unfortunately, as seen in electoral campaigns, political debate in Portugal has collapsed,” she said, also lamenting that among younger generations, “who are already children of April,” there is no “notion of what Portuguese reality was before April 25.”
In many events organized by A25A—dedicated to preserving the memory of the Portuguese Revolution of April 25, 1974, as well as Portugal under dictatorship, opposition to the regime, and Portuguese emigration—”it’s clear that younger people have no notion of what Portugal was like 50 years ago” and do not understand “the achievements of April,” she stated.
“People seem unaware that Portugal was at the tail end of Europe in many indicators, living in dire conditions with almost no social mobility […] Chega worries me because it emerges as an anti-system party and with rhetoric claiming to end the corruption of the last 50 years. But what, before was better?” she questioned, not hiding her indignation.
What is certain, she admitted, is that Chega managed to have a mobilizing effect, attracting even many emigrants who decided to vote for the first time in a country where, Ivane Domingues pointed out, the Portuguese form the third-largest foreign community (after Italians and Germans) but also the one with the lowest civic participation.
“Chega succeeded in attracting people who weren’t involved in political life and weren’t voting until now. If it managed, and it did, to draw people out of abstention for a more constructive political debate in Portugal… But no, everything revolves around minor issues, ‘fait-divers,’ and misinformation. Portugal’s problem is not the Roma or immigrants,” she concluded.
Although she admitted that, as a Portuguese emigrant, she even feels “some shame over the result obtained by the far-right” in a country that has always been one of emigration, she assured that the association of which she is a member “will continue to showcase the achievements of April and what life was like under the Estado Novo,” hoping to reach younger people, recognizing that it’s not an easy task, as increasingly, new generations seem to be “in a bubble,” consuming that “news diet” that is hardly advisable.
