Portugal braces for snap election as far right advances

Chega, an Islamophobic nationalist party, is predicted to win a large chunk of support in Sunday’s vote.

Viana do Castelo, Portugal – It’s been nearly three months since Portugal’s hard-right party, Chega, held its annual congress in the northern city of Viana do Castelo.

But its electoral propaganda remains fixed to almost every lamp-post on the main avenue, trumpeting one of its key messages for next Sunday’s general elections: “We will end corruption and [get] jobs for the boys in Portugal!”

Graft and its consequences certainly play a pivotal role in these snap polls, Portugal’s third in five years.

So, too, will the seemingly unstoppable rise of Chega, already the country’s third-largest parliamentary party behind the ruling Socialist Party (PS) and the mainstream centre-right formation, the Social Democratic Party (PSD).

But along with the wearily familiar tale of a hard-right European populist party netting protest votes from centrist formations battered by scandals, at the grassroots level it’s also evident the Portuguese electorate wants other issues, much closer to people’s everyday lives, to form part of the narrative of this March’s poll.