There is a fact that we can already confirm: leader André Ventura’s speech is perfectly aligned with that of the remaining deputies and leaders of the Chega party who have appeared on television and newspapers commenting on the post-election scenarios since the night of March 10, sometimes almost repeating word for word. Last night (March 18) in a debate on CNN Portugal, in front of Duarte Marques (former PSD deputy) and Adalberto Campos Fernandes (former Minister of Health of a PS Government), Pedro Pinto did not deviate from the rule and returned to defend the need for a “Government agreement” between Chega and the Democratic Alliance, despite Luís Montegro’s rejection.
“The Portuguese, on Sunday, gave a signal to our country. And they gave a signal [de] who wanted right-wing government. And that’s why Chega took the absolute majority from the PS. It’s just that it wasn’t the PSD. The PSD maintained the same number of deputies he had two years ago”, declared Pedro Pinto, re-elected as Chega’s deputy for the next legislature.
In the same intervention, he also repeated the argument that “it was Chega who took that absolute majority from the PS”, elaborating later that, from his perspective, “then the Portuguese gave a signal, a million, more than a million Portuguese said: ‘we want a right-wing government in Portugal, we want to give stability to Portugal'”.
Is it true that “PSD kept the same number of deputies”?
No. Although it was very close to the number obtained in 2022.
In fact, in the 2022 legislative elections, the PSD ran solo on the mainland and in coalitions with the CDS-PP in Madeira and the Azores (in the latter region, also including the PPM). He then obtained a total of 77 deputy mandatesincluding three from Madeira and two from the Azores who were elected through the aforementioned coalitions.
However, in the 2024 legislative elections, the PSD competed as part of the AD coalition (along with CDS-PP and PPM) in the national territory and in coalition only with the CDS-PP in Madeira. Although the results in foreign circles have not yet been determined, AD has won a total of 79 deputy mandatesincluding three from Madeira who were elected through a coalition with the CDS-PP.
This number should also increase with the votes of circles abroad. When around half of these votes have already been counted, the partial count points to two representatives from Chega, one from AD and one from PS.
In addition to more mandates, the AD also obtained more votes than the PSD in 2022: without foreign circles, it has accumulated so far more than 1.8 million voteswhereas in 2022 it had not gone beyond just over 1.6 million.
As for the argument that “it was Chega who took this absolute majority from the PS”, even though it is close to reality, it is important to emphasize that Livre quadrupled its parliamentary representationthus contributing (on its scale and alongside AD) to this result.
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