The teachers at the Faro high school, in the Algarve, glimpsed before anyone else the growth that the extreme right was going to have in last Sunday's elections in Portugal.
The previous Friday they simulated the elections among students between 15 and 18 years old.
378 students participated, giving victory to the far-right Chega, followed by the conservative Democratic Alliance coalition.
The Socialist Party barely retained one deputy, saved thanks to the vote of the students.
Taking advantage of the fact that it was Women's Day, the teachers separated the female vote from the rest (boys and non-binary) in two ballot boxes and the result confirmed the abyss between their preferences.
Chega obtained 17% of the student votes and 42.5% among the rest.
“Women clearly perceive his sexist discourse,” emphasizes Ricardo Oliveira, Geography teacher at the institute.
The school experiment anticipated the turnaround in the Algarve.
The extreme right won in the region with 64,228 votes, 4,000 more than the PS, which had chained three victories since 2015. The political earthquake caused by a five-year-old formation was widespread: more than a million people voted for Chega in the country and made it the centerpiece for political stability.
During this week, analyzes have taken place to understand why the Algarve, the region associated with summer happiness, embraced the populist speech of André Ventura, a former center-right militant trained in agile and provocative response in his days as a commentator. Benfica television.
But Ventura should not be reduced to this broad stroke.
He graduated in Law, published some legal books, was a tax inspector and has had ambitions to be someone in some field for a long time.
More than a political career, he feels like he is on a crusade against the left.
“I believe that God placed me in this place, at this time,” he once commented.
Ricardo Oliveira, Geography teacher at the Faro high school.joao henriques
What has happened for its radical message to conquer the land of light?
“The lack of investment facilitates the entry of populist discourse, it is in the booklet of all its leaders, from Abascal to Trump, who also explore fear.
This has been a vote of protest and fear,” says Oliveira.
The Algarve has a few fears (integration problems with immigrants and gypsies) and many pending issues in infrastructure to guarantee water, health and mobility, which the successive PSD and PS governments have not resolved and which make life worse for the people. people.
“It is one of the most forgotten regions of the country, politicians only remember it when they want to go to the beach, probably to a house rented at exorbitant prices or to their own house that only opens when the sun brings the heat, exacerbating the housing problem in the region, one of the most expensive in Portugal,” wrote João Vieira Pereira, director of
Expresso
and a native of the area.
Pedro Sousa and Monica Candeias, owners of a bar in Luz de Tavira, Algarve, were former socialist voters who now support Chega.joao henriques
An unequal society
The Algarve that Chega voted for has nothing to do with the advertising paradise for tourists, which last year encouraged almost 10 million foreigners to fly to Faro airport.
Behind the first line of the beach lives an unequal society.
A quarter of the population is at risk of poverty and social exclusion, above the state average of 20%.
The tourist specialization of the south, which houses 33% of hotel beds, has generated a lot of wealth that has not permeated those who work in the sector.
Salaries are lower and the school dropout rate is higher than in the rest of the country.
The region has attracted rich foreigners who settle in villas that are open a few weeks a year and very poor foreigners who come from Nepal to work in the harvesting of oranges and avocados.
Both affect the real estate market and increase the price of housing.
Both make the locals feel increasingly relegated in their towns.
The Algarve may be a paradise for an occasional visitor, but it is not a place to live on an average Portuguese salary (1,505 euros in 2023).
A secondary school teacher like Ricardo Oliveira, who has been paid 1,300 euros since January (and before 1,120), has to resign himself to living in a room for which he pays 400 euros.
An apartment, which costs around 800 euros, is out of his reach.
“We belong to the European Union, but it doesn't seem like it in salary terms,” he reproaches.
The professor is also a Red Cross lifeguard and often observes the shortcomings of the Faro hospital, the most important in the region.
The rate of doctors, nurses and beds per inhabitant is lower than the Portuguese average.
“The lack of resources it has is a shame.
There are not enough doctors or nurses.
Either we wait there for hours to be attended to or we go to the private one and pay a fortune, this makes people very angry,” he laments.
José Maria da Silva Gomes Nené, sitting outside the Faro hospital, has voted for the socialists but is disappointed with them.joao henriques
Outside the hospital, José Maria Silva Gomes Nené is sitting.
He is 76 years old and lives in Vila Real de Santo Antonio, next to the mouth of the Guadiana.
He waits outside for his wife to finish her chemotherapy treatment.
He is a socialist voter who has remained loyal to the party despite its disappointment: “I have supported them but I am not happy.
Life has gotten worse and worse.
My daughter will have to sell her house to be able to pay the remainder of her mortgage and now there are lines for everything.
"I used to have a family doctor and now I don't have one anymore."
He is one of the 120,000 public health users in the Algarve who lack a primary care professional in their health center, a phenomenon that affects 1.7 million Portuguese.
André Ventura caused a scandal when he was still a member of the PSD for some statements against the gypsies.
After founding Chega in 2019, he initially focused the racist focus of his speech on them.
About 30,000 people of the Gypsy ethnic group live in Portugal.
Faro and Portimão, in the south, are among the 10 municipalities in the country with the highest number of
ciganos
.
The family who was waiting outside the hospital on Wednesday for a child's operation trusts that they have voted for the PS.
“We spoke through Facebook so that all gypsies could vote for the socialists,” says José João, 31 years old.
“In our land there is a lot of racism.
If we depend on subsidies it is because we cannot find work.
I lived for four years in England, where there is also racism, but no one asks you if you are a gypsy to give you a job, they don't care," says Julia Fonseca, who moved from Faro to Portimão after getting married.
They refuse the photos.
In a delicatessen in the Faro market, Sandra Sousa delivers salted bacon and
linguiça
(sausage) to a customer.
She was not surprised by the result of the extreme right in the Algarve.
“There are many gypsies here.
We work, we pay taxes, we have children and we have no right to anything, while they have the right to subsidies and do not work.
Everything is wrong and since Chega offers hope and hope, people voted for them.
"I didn't do it, I don't share his homophobia or his racism."
Sandra Sousa, in her delicatessen in the Faro market, in the Algarve, last Wednesday.joao henriques
She crossed out her ballot.
His was one of the 369 null votes counted in Faro, where Chega grew notably although without surpassing the Democratic Alliance or the Socialist Party, which he won with 27.37%.
This time Sousa did not support them.
“I always voted socialist, but they don't do anything for medium commerce.
I am angry with all parties, not just the socialists.
I work from morning to night, I pay a lot of taxes and they do nothing to help us,” she says.
If the new Faro hospital is a promise pending since 2008, the infrastructure to resolve the water supply has also been dragging on for years.
“The PS abandoned the Algarve.
I have already been to two ceremonies for laying the first stone of the hospital and the old man is still breaking at the seams.
In 15 years, no decision has been made to increase water storage,” criticizes Macario Correia, who presided over the municipalities of Tavira and Faro for the PSD.
Correia is a farmer and presides over one of the three irrigators' associations.
Despite tourism specialization, fishing and farming are still significant activities.
The Algarve has 40,000 hectares of irrigated land, half of which are dedicated to the cultivation of orange trees.
The avocado, which has been introduced strongly in recent years, occupies about 2,000 hectares.
Macario Correia, former mayor of Faro, in a cafe in the Algarve town, on March 13. joao henriques
The drought that the region is experiencing, with reservoirs at 25% of their capacity, leads to drastic water restrictions.
It is expected that agriculture will have to reduce consumption by 50% and urban supply by 15%.
Correia maintains that reducing irrigation by half “means not producing fruit.”
In recent weeks some relief has fallen from the sky.
The rains have improved the level of the swamps and the restrictions plan will be reviewed.
But the Algarve has been looking to the sky for too many years.
Even a socialist like former MEP Ana Gomes criticized the inaction of her party.
“In many actions and omissions, the PS ended up giving ammunition to Chega.
For example, we have Chega's overwhelming victory in the Algarve.
"I wonder how it is accepted that a basic issue like water has not been assured in the region during the socialist government of these years."
Macario Correia insists on the idea.
“In eight years of government, the PS has not solved any of the major problems of the Algarve.
He talked and talked and talked without fixing anything.
The result is this great discontent and the revolt of the population that has supported an extremist party, which campaigns against it and does not propose anything.
“The votes that the PS loses are the votes that Chega gains.”
The pull of the extreme right was greater than the socialist setback.
Ventura's party won 30,000 votes compared to 2022, almost double those lost by the PS (17,600).
As in the rest of the country, a massive participation was recorded: 61.74%, 10 points more than two years ago.
The former mayor of Faro repeats a common message among politicians after Sunday's surprise.
“They are not people who are against democracy or in favor of fascism;
“They exercise a protest vote, but they are not supporting an economic program, but rather giving a messianic and populist vote to someone who says what people think superficially,” he argues.
The transfer of votes from the PS to Chega is real.
Monica Candeias and Pedro Sousa, who run a bar at the foot of the national highway that runs through Luz de Tavira, are two examples.
In the past Pedro voted for the socialists and Monica, sometimes for the PS, sometimes for the Left Bloc.
During the brief gathering that is organized around the bar with customers on Wednesday afternoon, they listen to each other with respect.
Larero Martins is 68 years old and his memory is fresh from the days of the political police of the Portuguese dictatorship, which established its power over repression, censorship and indoctrination.
“I am left-wing, like my entire family and I will always fight for a left-wing party, I will never vote for one of these parties,” he says.
Ventura seems to him “a second Salazar.”
The owner of the café does not share everything the Chega leader says, but he was “fed up” with the two major Portuguese parties.
“They never do what they say.”
In Luz de Tavira there lives a large colony of foreigners who work in the countryside.
The bar is between two houses where immigrants live and near businesses selling Asian products.
“I don't think Ventura is racist.
What he says is that we need to have those immigrants who are needed, but not that they come in any way without knowing who they are and exploited by their networks, poor people who come to a poor country,” says Sousa.
“The local population stops having houses to rent because the empty ones are rented to immigrants.
20 must live next door, if they pay 50 euros each, the owner is already taking a thousand euros a month,” his partner reproaches.
The fisherman and seller Paulo Almeida Encarnacão, at the Olhão market (Portugal), last Wednesday.joao henriques
Fisherman Paulo Almeida Encarnacão has also changed PS for Chega.
While preparing the stall in the Olhão market, where Ventura's party had the most votes and where Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, participated in an event, he criticized the tax burden and the state of healthcare.
“We vote so much in Chega because we are disenchanted with those who have governed us for the last 50 years in Portugal,” he says.
The extreme right also won in Boliqueime, where the former conservative president Aníbal Cavaco Silva was born.
A fact that especially delighted Ventura on election night.
It is one of the parishes served by the priest Pedro Manuel along with those of Paderne and Ferreiras, which also gave Chega the victory.
“It's not the father's fault,” he jokes.
The priest Pedro Manuel, before the church of Paderne, in the Algarve, last Wednesday.joao henriques
After nine years in the region, after replacing a highly appreciated African priest, a fact that in his opinion indicates the lack of racism, he perceives “a general fatigue due to the lack of political response, I cannot say what the reasons for the discontent are.” , some are transversal to the country, like the price of houses.”
And he emphasizes: “I do not believe that the result reveals a profound cultural change in the people, that they woke up on Sunday, March 10 and have altered their ideology and their way of being.
"I don't want to demonize them because I consider that there are people who are raising a cry of protest."
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