‘This is Chega's kingdom'

Far-right party targets resentful voters as leader eyes poll victory

- Catarina Fernandes Martins

The road into Albufeira is thronged with billboards. Some - such as the faded one on a roundabout leading to the centre of the southern Portuguese resort city - offer sun-bleached glimpses of enticing real estate, golden beaches and vibrant nightlife.

Others, which have sprung up before tomorrow’s local elections, peddle promises of a different kind. By far the most numerous are those belonging to the far-right Chega party. Its political posters feature one-line grievances about the state of public health, education and housing - while also reassuring passing drivers in the Algarve city that these problems will be solved once Chega is in charge.

Tomorrow there’s a good chance that disillusioned Albufeirans, who have voted for the centre-right Social Democratic party (PSD) for more than two decades, will help give Chega a historic night. After leapfrogging the socialists to take second place in May’s general election, Chega is now hoping to leverage local frustrations to gain dozens of municipalities across the country - and position itself for the same in a general election.

The Algarve sits at the very centre of the far right’s strategy. Chega’s leader, André Ventura, a former football pundit and newspaper columnist who left the PSD to found the new party just six years ago, has called the region the “party’s stronghold” and the starting point of Portugal’s “conquest” by the far right.

A poll last month for the Portuguese weekly Diário de Notícias put Ventura’s party in the lead for the national vote for the first time. Its cocktail of populist policies, among them stricter controls on migration and chemical castration for paedophiles, has grabbed the attention of voters who are sick of the corruption scandals that have dogged the two main parties in recent years. Some believe Ventura may be on track to becoming prime minister.