Defeats in places like the fortress city of Elvas and in Sintra, where far-right influencer Rita Matias came in third place, suggest the party underperforms when its charismatic leader Ventura is not on the ballot.
It was also a tough night for the Socialist Party, which lost tight races in Portugal’s two largest cities. In Lisbon, Socialist Alexandra Leitão failed to unseat incumbent center-right Mayor Carlos Moedas, while in Porto conservative Pedro Duarte beat former MEP and Socialist candidate Manuel Pizarro.
Despite polls suggesting he was headed for defeat, Moedas was backed by 30,000 more voters than in 2021. The results suggest electors do not hold him accountable for last month’s deadly funicular disaster, the causes of which remain under investigation.
“I asked to have just one more vote [than my rival], but the voters gave me 30,000 more,” Moedas said in a celebratory speech. Falling just shy of securing an absolute majority of seats in the municipal council, the former European commissioner for science promised to lead a “stable” minority government which will negotiate with everyone — even Chega.
Beyond Lisbon and Porto, the Socialists secured significant victories in the university city of Coimbra and in Faro, the capital of the southern Algarve region, where center-left candidate António Pina beat the far-right in winning over voters who feel abandoned by the hyper-centralized Portuguese state. But those wins came with losses in smaller municipalities which were conquered by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s center-right Social Democratic Party.
While Socialist Party leader José Luís Carneiro pointed out the center-left won far more votes than in last May’s snap parliamentary election, when Chega outperformed it to become the country’s leading opposition party, Sunday’s results bode poorly ahead of January’s presidential election. The Socialists are due to choose their candidate to succeed outgoing President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa next week.
