The Socialist Party (PS) suffered its third-worst electoral performance on Sunday, nearly tying with Chega, leading its leader, Pedro Nuno Santos, to resign a year and a half after his election. Political analyst António Costa Pinto attributed the decline to both structural and situational factors, including “eight years of socialist governance” and “the new secretary-general.”
Pinto emphasized that structural factors extend beyond the PS to include the “structural divide” facing the nation. He noted, “There seems to be no doubt that the right has regained momentum, growing among younger segments,” with the “less educated” voting for Chega and the “more educated younger segments” voting for both the Democratic Alliance (AD) and Iniciativa Liberal. In contrast, “the left now has an aging electorate and has lost significant segments of young voters,” summarized Costa Pinto.
Paula Espírito Santo, a professor at the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas (ISCSP) at the University of Lisbon, pointed to a “convergence of elements” leading to the PS’s abrupt decline. She cited the party’s “inability to assert itself before the government” and Pedro Nuno Santos’s lack of “strong and charismatic leadership.” His involvement in cases during his tenure as Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, notably the TAP compensation case involving Alexandra Reis, also contributed to the PS’s electoral fall.
Meanwhile, Susana Salgado, a Political Communication specialist and researcher at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICDS) of the University of Lisbon, focused on the “legacy” left by António Costa’s eight-year government, during which “several problems were left unresolved.” She also highlighted “contradictory narratives” between the PS and PSD that preceded Montenegro’s government’s downfall, which left Pedro Nuno unable to convince “even his own electorate.”
Salgado added that there is also the issue of “anti-establishment voting,” stressing that “voting for Chega is not merely protest voting,” but is “more structural than that.”
With Chega and the PS neck-and-neck in terms of deputies and a right-leaning parliament—given that AD, Chega, and IL together form over two-thirds of the lawmakers, which could allow, for instance, for a constitutional revision—political analysts pointed out that the rise of the far-right should serve as a “warning” to “establishment parties,” reflecting “the discontent of Portuguese society” and showing that “the Portuguese did not desire” elections.
“The most significant aspect of these elections was the Socialist Party’s electoral decline, giving Chega the opportunity to be the ‘challenger’ on the radical right against the current AD government,” Costa Pinto concluded, highlighting the major “challenge” for socialists to reclaim their electorate in municipal elections.
