(28 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lisbon – 28 May 2025
1. Various of Chega party leader Andre Ventura entering room and celebrating with supporters
2. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Andre Ventura, Leader of Chega party:
"Chega has won the elections of tonight, it was the most voted party in Europe and outside of Europe. Chega was the most voted party by the Portuguese all around the world. Thank you, thank you from the heart for this enormous victory."
3. Close of reporter, sign reading (Portuguese) "road to victory"
4. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Andre Ventura, Leader of Chega party:
"So this thank you is also a way to own our responsibility, because today my dear, it is not just a day of counting of votes, today is an historic day for Portugal, a day that will be seen in the future as the moment when a party with six years has broken with 50 years of bipartisanship in Portugal"
5. Wide of applauses
6. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Andre Ventura, Leader of Chega party:
"For years we heard that change was late to this country, that winds of change on the right were happening around Europe and the European peoples were rising up and telling the elites that they wanted to have a voice, that they wanted a country of their own and for themselves. Perhaps it came late to Portugal but I have to tell you that today during the afternoon and evening, from all European leaders, from all, we received words of thank you, admiration and of recognition for the enormous work we have been doing to raise again the pride of this country."
7. Pan right of applause
8. Ventura waving
9. Various of supporters applauding and celebrating
10. Close of flag waving
STORYLINE:
Portugal’s anti-immigration Chega party notched another political gain for Europe’s far right on Wednesday after it was assigned the second-most seats in parliament — meaning it will become the head of the parliamentary opposition to the new government.
That shatters the pattern of Portugal’s center-right and center-left mainstream parties alternating between heading a government or leading the opposition.
Chega’s strides since the May 18 election coincide with gains elsewhere by far-right forces. In Europe, those include France’s National Rally, the Brothers of Italy and Alternative for Germany, which are now in the political mainstream.
Leading the opposition is quite the accomplishment for a once-fringe party that competed in its first election six years ago, when it won one seat.
It has surged recently with its hardline stance against immigration and with the inability of traditional parties to form lasting governments. The May 18th election was Portugal’s third in as many years.
Chega, which means “Enough,” secured 60 of the National Assembly’s 230 seats after it picked up two more seats on Wednesday from the overseas voters of the European Union country of 10.6 million people.
“This is a profound change in the Portuguese political system," Chega leader Andre Ventura told supporters after Chega bested the Socialists by two seats.
The center-right Democratic Alliance, led by the Social Democratic Party, captured two more seats to take its tally to 88.
Following the election, incoming Prime Minister Luis Montenegro was already looking at heading another minority government similar to the one that fell two months ago in a confidence vote after less than a year in power.
But now Montenegro and other parties will face an emboldened far-right competitor that campaigned under the slogan “Save Portugal” and describes itself as a nationalist party.
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