The leader of Chega, André Ventura, announced on Tuesday to journalists at the Assembly of the Republic that the party will vote against the State Budget for 2026 as the general discussion on the budget was still ongoing.
“Chega will vote against the State Budget for 2026,” Ventura stated.
The primary reason cited by Ventura for this decision is the increase in “fiscal pressure on families and businesses,” arguing that this is a significant concern for the party.
“According to our calculations, the expected increase in tax revenue will be around 3 billion euros. This suggests that the State and the Government will continue to collect taxes from families and businesses to sustain the enormous machinery of the State.”
Ventura remarked that “many” efforts were made to prevent “this chronic inability not to consistently draw on people’s resources for redistribution,” but “it was impossible to contain this drive.”
“We genuinely attempted to build bridges and ensure a consensus. However, we cannot have consensus with budgets that continue to take from those who work and those who contribute, to distribute to others, either those who have never done anything, who do not want to work, or those who come to Portugal from other countries. For us, that was a truly insurmountable red line,” he stated.
The Chega leader also addressed the issue of personal income tax, claiming that “everything the Government is announcing” in this regard “will be felt by the Portuguese people” when they submit their tax returns next year.
“They will feel it when they have to pay what they did not pay in withholding taxes over the next year. Therefore, what emerges from this budget is that the budget we have for 2026, regardless of political bias, is essentially giving with one hand and taking away with the other from people,” he criticized.
Finally, Ventura summarized that this budget is akin to the budgets of António Costa in that “they pretend to give while robbing from behind.” Furthermore, Ventura reiterated an expression he used with the former prime minister, describing this budget as “giving with one hand and taking away with the other from people.”
When asked whether Chega felt freer to vote against the budget since the Socialist Party announced it would abstain and facilitate the approval of the 2026 budget, Ventura stated that the party “does not fear elections or scrutiny and makes decisions with conviction, without focusing on votes or potential gains or losses.”
He noted that the party “attempted to contact the Government, which remained inflexible on these matters,” thus “Chega cannot yield on this.”
When asked if this voting stance also applies to the overall final vote, Ventura indicated that Chega approaches “matters step by step.”
“We will observe what happens in the detailed discussion,” he stated.
“In politics, there are neither general cards nor decisions without attention to detail and negotiation. Chega is a party that takes negotiation seriously, values the votes of the Portuguese, does not sell out, but also does not obstruct. Chega is negotiating matters seriously, as it did with nationality issues, immigration laws, and personal income tax. Chega takes this seriously,” he emphasized.
The document is scheduled for a vote this afternoon and is expected to be facilitated by the abstention of the Socialist Party and approved by PSD and CDS-PP.
[Updated news at 17h42]
