It used to be that a particular section of southern Portugal was dominated by the Communist Party. In elections, that region would be won by the communists, while the rest of the country elected socialists and conservatives. That era is now over.
Instead, in the communists’ place sits the hard-right Chega! party, which won a whopping 18% of the national vote in this month’s election, including a first-place showing in two regions. The communists won just four seats in the legislature, to the hard-right’s 50. It’s the best performance for a Portuguese third-party since the communists dominated in the 1980s. The winning center-right alliance is now forced to make a choice: either work with their traditional rivals on the center-left or with a radical hard-right party of untested mettle. Right now they seem to be leaning towards the former, but that could change if the center-left proves a fickle partner.
The Portuguese results come at an interesting time. Ireland just held two consequential constitutional referendums on social issues, both of which failed. One referendum would have included unmarried couples in the definition of “family,” while the other would have removed a reference to women’s “life within the home.” The failure of these constitutional amendments is especially significant when you consider what a slam dunk they should have been.
Ireland famously legalized same-sex marriage and abortion in two referendums in the 2010s, by large margins no less. Every poll showed these new referendums passing, and every major party supported them. And yet, not only did the referendums fail, they failed by massive margins, one with almost three fourths of voters against. This has precipitated the resignation of Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who is stepping down in favor of Simon Harris.
Slovakia, too, is not immune to these shifts. Nationalists won a majority of the vote in their presidential election held this month, but the vote was split between too many candidates for anyone to win outright. A runoff between a pro-European progressive and a left-wing nationalist will be held early next month.
So why is the establishment losing so much? It comes down to an anti-establishment surge washing all across Europe right now. And with Europe’s supranational Parliament election coming up in May, the main leading parties of the center-left and center-right are afraid of losing their coalition’s majority. If that happens, then new figures from either the nationalist left or nationalist right will have to be integrated into the European Union’s governing institutions in order for the Union to continue operating.
There are some interesting implications for the United States, too. Portugal’s election in particular is reminiscent of U.S. elections, where the “Republican Party” behaves more like two parties stacked in a trench coat: one center-right, and the other hard-right. Speaker Mike Johnson relies more on the support of the center-left to pass bills than he does on the hard-right members of his party. A center-right/center-left bipartisan coalition is forced in the United States, as one side controls the House and the other side controls the Senate. Whether Portugal can retain a similar balance remains yet to be seen. The lack of a Portuguese Senate means that the right-wing could decide to govern on its own, unlike in the United States.
We’ll see whether the United States succumbs to the same nationalist surge Europe is facing in the fall. In any case, it’ll be an interesting journey.
