The former Secretary-General of the Socialist Party, Pedro Nuno Santos, argued that there was no retraction of Chega in the municipal elections and that the results of this party, seen by many as negative, should not be confused with those of the legislative elections.
“We might calm our spirits by believing that Chega suffered an electoral setback and was the big loser of the night, but it is not true. And it is not by denying the current reality that we will change it in the future,” he initially wrote on Instagram.
The socialist expressed that “it is more convenient to compare these municipal elections with the last legislative elections, but as the saying goes, it’s like comparing apples and oranges.”
“These are two inherently different elections, where the issues at stake are very different. If we were to compare with the last legislative elections, we would have to conclude that the big winner of the night would have been the PCP because they would have managed to double the vote from May to October. In May, they had 3% of the votes (183,741) and yesterday they had almost 6% (316,271 votes). Saying this would be ridiculous. The PCP, like the rest of the Left, is in retreat and has suffered considerable losses,” emphasized Pedro Nuno Santos.
In the view of the former Minister of Infrastructure, André Ventura “made the mistake of setting a high target for municipalities, and he only did so because he is unfamiliar with the reality of local power.” He cites the example of the National Front in France, “which achieved very significant results in the country’s most important elections – the presidential ones – before establishing itself as a political force at the local level.”
“Chega managed, without any significant implantation in local power, to move from 19 councilors in 2021 to 137 in 2025. And it consolidated its position in the country’s largest metropolitan area – Lisbon – and in the Setúbal district, where they are the second political force in several municipalities: Loures and Odivelas, in the Lisbon district; or Moita, Montijo, Palmela, Seixal, and Sesimbra, in the Setúbal district,” Pedro Nuno Santos further emphasized, concluding that “there was no retraction of Chega,” hence “let’s not bury our heads in the sand.”
