After eight years of socialist government, Portugal turns to the right.
According to exit polls, the Portuguese have rewarded the opposition forces in the political era of Antonio Costa: the moderate conservative front of the Democratic Alliance is the first party, with a figure between 29 and 33%.
Exploit of the far-right populists of the Chega party and its leader Andre Ventura, who doubled their votes, going from 7% in 2022, to a figure between 14 and 17%.
The socialists collapse, gaining between 25 and 29%, very far from the 41% two years ago that brought Antonio Costa back to government.
However, the formation of the government remains an unknown and all the scenarios ahead remain open.
Only in the next few days will it be seen whether the pact between all the political forces to keep Chega away from the government will be maintained.
Throughout the electoral campaign, the conservatives of the Democratic Alliance have always ruled out the possibility of forming an executive with Ventura's extremists.
The moderate leader himself, Luis Montenegro, confirmed his veto, but other members of his party were not so clear on this point.
However, if this sort of "conventio ad excludendum" is maintained, the only way left for Portugal to have a government is the formula of broad agreements between the socialists and the moderates, with an executive perhaps led by Montenegro itself.
It would be the triumph of a political leader who managed to survive politically for 25 years and would see his tenacity rewarded.
Everyone thought his career had reached its end, perhaps after the European elections this spring, but at the end of November, in view of these early elections, he was confirmed as a candidate for prime minister.
On the progressive front, Pedro Nuno Santos, born in 1977, the same age as Giorgia Meloni, became the leader of the Portuguese socialists last December.
His arrival was seen as the sign of a generational change in the party, but also as a clear turn to the left.
Nicknamed the "terrible child" of the Socialist Party, he earned a reputation as a rebel and radical more than ten years ago, when Portugal had just been saved by the troika: "Either they become nice or we don't pay. And if we don't pay the debt German bankers' legs will tremble," he said in Parliament at the time.
But the new socialist general secretary has recently moderated his line to erase internal differences and appeal to the vote of the centre.
So much so that a bipartisan agreement with the moderate right cannot be ruled out in order to maintain the "cordon sanitaire" against Chega's extremists.
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