🇵🇹 Portugal's politics and elections 3.0

[Antonio the Sixth]

Has the Portuguese right really fallen so low that it needs to ally with f**king monarchists?? I know they probably look tame compared to the CHEGA creeps, but still, what the hell.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Has the Portuguese right really fallen so low that it needs to ally with f**king monarchists?? I know they probably look tame compared to the CHEGA creeps, but still, what the hell.

This is more a way to "reenact" the real Democratic Alliance of 1979, which also included PPM. But, back then PPM had a strong leader, Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, and now it's just a minor, underline minor, party that only survives due to the local and regional coalitions with the PSD. Back in 2005, PPM also ran in the PSD lists for the general elections. Also, the party has a lot of financial problems and being in a coalition with the PSD is actually helpful for them as it mitigates the problem, and if their lucky, winning a seat will grant them public financing.

Adding more info, PPM has no relationship whatsoever with the Bragança family, the Portuguese Royal Family, and in the past both were totally at odds, at a point that ended in a Court of law. I think that the party doesn't even accept Dom Duarte Pio's claim to the Portuguese Throne, but I'm not so sure about this.

That all just makes it even more pathetic though. I know I have no room to talk when Italian coalitions regularly include the most absurd and frankly embarrassing microparties into their fold, but I thought Portuguese parties were generally a bit more discerning when picking allies.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, depressing result. RIP the Portuguese exception of not having a major far-right party, but we knew that was going to happen. Now let's see how the Portuguese political establishment handles it.

All considered, PS didn't actually do so bad. Do we think it's enough for PNS to stick on as leader?

[Antonio the Sixth]

So how are we expecting the expat seats to break down? Given the low district magnitude I doubt Chega can win any of the 4 seats at play. I'm guessing PSD will win at least 2 and PS at least 1, with the last one up in the air?

Also whatever else can be said about this election, kudos to the Portuguese for voting at a higher rate than we've seen in decades. That's good news for democracy no matter what.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The same overseas ballots, which countinue to arrive at Portugal: Until early this Tuesday, 12 March, the Electoral Commission received 211,855 ballots, so far 88% from the Europe constituency and 12% from the Outside of Europe constituency. Ballots that arrive until mid afternoon of 20 March, will be counted. With the very slim margin between AD and PS, 79-77, and because the PSD and PS are currently tied in terms of seats, 77 each, some wonder if the overseas ballots will change the current balance, but the PS is not hopeful. Expresso newspaper says that the party only counts in winning one seat from the Europe constituency, and predict the CHEGA will get 2 seats and AD also only 1. We'll see.

Oh, yeesh, that is Brutal.

Also a surprising exception to the European pattern of far-right parties usually doing quite poorly with expat voters. I guess the Portuguese expat community might be significantly less wealthy/educated than that of most European countries?

[Antonio the Sixth]

CHEGA's current lead in Europe is mainly due to Switzerland, where the party has a massive lead over PS and AD.

lmao, why am I not surprised

[Antonio the Sixth]

How in God's name do you get so many invalid ballots?? Is that a problem with the postage or some other formality involving the envelope, or did that many people actually spoil their ballots somehow?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Looks like PSD and Chega will grab the last two seats, unless the remaining Brazil votes somehow allow PS to gain 400 votes over Chega (unlikely given how well Chega did in the other Brazil consulate).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Honestly not too bad a result for the PS in the grand scheme of things, considering they've been in power for a decade and have been hit by a pretty ridiculous amount of corruption scandals and the economic situation has been less than ideal for a while. Hopefully they get to be safely in the opposition for the next 4 years, and thus have the opportunity to rebuild and distance themselves from Costa's mistakes.

[Antonio the Sixth]

There are now three candidates: Francisco Assis (PS), again José Pedro Aguiar-Branco (PSD) and Manuela Tender (CHEGA).

Popcorn anybody?

Nailed it

[Antonio the Sixth]

Chega just deciding to throw any hope of achieving credibility as a parliamentary force out the window from the very start, huh?

It's really something when you make Le Pen look like a master political strategist by comparison.