CHEGA leader promotes himself to Leader of Portugal’s Opposition
CHEGA leader André Ventura, miraculously recovered from his debilitating attacks combining acid reflux with high blood pressure, left his party’s post-election audience with President Marcelo yesterday in high spirits.
He told the posse of waiting reporters that CHEGA has already assumed its position as the country’s official party in Opposition, and the alternative to government.
Considering this had been a meeting to discuss forms in which the three leading parties in the country could back the winning AD coalition for the sake of Portugal’s stability, this was already a position that suggests CHEGA has its eye on a very particular horizon.
For a start, Ventura was presupposing that votes still to come in (from emigrés in Europe, and outside Europe) would give CHEGA the advantage over PS Socialists. True, on the basis of last year’s results, this could be seen as possible (there are four MPs all told still to place) – but it hasn’t happened yet, and it won’t until next Wednesday (May 28).
Nonetheless, in a discourse that went on far longer than that of either AD’s leader (who said very little when he left the president, earlier in the day) or PS’s outgoing secretary general, Ventura stressed that he would be putting together “an alternative government ready to govern at any moment should the Portuguese people be called to the urns”.
That phrase needs unpacking: “should the Portuguese people be called to the urns”. By whom? Remember, the focus right now should be (we’re told) on guaranteeing Portugal’s stability, because no one wants any more snap elections… and these cannot possibly take place before the summer of 2026, due to rules of the Constitution, and the fact that president Marcelo is leaving office in the New Year, and a successor needs to be in place some time before parliament can be dissolved.
Ventura admittedly countered his thoughts with “the country doesn’t need more elections…” assuring that CHEGA is “open to dialogue”.
The party seeks to become “a beacon of stability”, he went on, “refusing to allow lack of control in immigration or the racket of giving subsidies to those who do not work…”
Another condition of being open to dialogue will be “improving the fight against corruption” and seeing that those who work are “treated with dignity”, he added.
In the proffered opinion later in the day of President Marcelo, “we will have stability” – although there is still some way to go before the principal parties sign up to this nirvana: further meetings with all of them will come next week, while today Portugal’s head of state will be hearing Iniciativa Liberal, followed by LIVRE (the only left-leaning party to have made any gains last Sunday).
Suggesting it is not just CHEGA who has a rarefied reading on reality, PCP communists (who lost another MP on Sunday; now down to just three representatives in parliament) have said they will be presenting a motion of rejection of the government’s programme. This comes before a new government has been sworn in – and before it has officially presented its programme. ND
