Chega targets city halls as Portugal votes in local elections

Portugal's 9.3 million registered voters return to the polls on Sunday for local elections that could hand the far-right Chega party its first city halls, five months after the party surged to become the second-largest force in the national parliament. The contest is being fought almost entirely on housing, a crisis that has spread from the capital to the Algarve coast and the depopulated interior, and which mainstream parties have struggled to contain.

In Lisbon, average property prices have climbed nearly 80 percent in five years to €5,769 per square metre, according to market data. The incumbent mayor, Carlos Moedas, a former European commissioner, points to 2,881 families rehoused during his term. Critics say the city needs 150,000 new homes. His Socialist challenger, Alexandra Leitão, has made tourism pressure her signature issue, promising a crackdown on short-term lets and a moratorium on new hotel licences until the city produces a coherent plan.

The race was already neck-and-neck when a funicular crash killed two people and injured dozens last month. Victims' families say no one from City Hall has contacted them since. Moedas postponed any council hearings on the accident until after the election, a decision Chega's Lisbon lead candidate, Bruno Mascarenhas, tried to censure. The motion failed, but the episode has handed Leitão a line of attack and given Chega leverage: neither Moedas nor Leitão is expected to win a majority, so Chega's handful of councillors could decide who governs.

Portugal's second city votes for its first new mayor in twelve years. Rui Moreira, the independent centre-right incumbent, is not standing. His would-be successor, Pedro Duarte of the Social Democrats, wants tax incentives to coax owners of the city's estimated 20,000 empty dwellings into affordable rentals. Manuel Pizarro, a former MEP and the Socialist candidate, counters that building 5,000 homes on municipal land would be faster. Duarte also proposes raising the tourist tax to fund free public transport for residents; Pizarro wants to cut the speed limit on the inner ring road, a measure that has already drawn ire from commuters.

As in Lisbon, neither candidate is polling near a majority. Chega's vote share in Porto has risen steadily since 2021, and its councillors could again hold the balance. The party's national leader, André Ventura, has made clear he sees the northern capital as a symbolic prize, even if the path there is narrower than in the south.

Chega's clearest opportunities lie away from the metropolitan centres. In the Algarve, the country's lowest average wages collide with a cost of living inflated by foreign retirees and seasonal tourists. The party's narrative, that seasonal migrants are displacing locals, resonates in municipalities where the state has long been perceived as distant. Polls still show the traditional parties holding Faro, the regional capital, but Chega leads in several smaller coastal and inland councils.

Sintra, the greater Lisbon commuter belt municipality of 400,000 people, is a three-way toss-up. Rita Matias, a Chega MP and social-media presence, is polling level with the Socialist and Social Democrat contenders. Housing pressure there has intensified as Lisbon workers are priced out. Further east, the border town of Elvas and the rural councils of Viana do Alentejo and Benavente look like plausible Chega pickups. In May's legislative election, Chega topped the poll in 60 municipalities; Sunday will test whether that translates into executive power.

Chega entered parliament in 2019 with a single deputy. The snap election called in March 2025, triggered by the collapse of the Socialist minority government, handed the party 50 seats and 18 percent of the vote, cementing its status as the main opposition to the centre-right AD coalition. The party also holds seats in the European Parliament. But it has never run a city hall. Local government in Portugal controls planning, licensing, social housing and tourism regulation, the very levers Chega campaigns on. Winning even a handful of mid-sized councils would give the party administrative experience, patronage networks and a platform for the next legislative cycle.

The pattern mirrors developments elsewhere in Europe, where nationalist parties have moved from protest votes to governing roles in regions and municipalities. In Portugal, the difference is that Chega's rise has coincided with a housing emergency that crosses ideological lines. The Social Democrats and Socialists both promise supply-side solutions; Chega adds a demand-side argument, restrict immigration, curb foreign buying, prioritise nationals, that mainstream parties have been reluctant to articulate.

Portugal's municipal elections use a closed-list proportional system with a majority bonus: the list that wins the most votes nationally in a municipality receives a guaranteed majority of seats on the council, provided it crosses 50 percent. Below that threshold, seats are distributed proportionally, and the mayor is elected by the council. In practice, this means a party winning 35-40 percent can still govern if it secures support from smaller parties. Chega rarely polls above 20 percent in the big cities, but its votes are often decisive in coalition arithmetic.

Polling stations close at 20:00 GMT on the mainland, with exit polls published an hour later once voting ends in the Azores. The count is centralised and fast; a near-final result is usually available before midnight. The interior ministry publishes granular data down to parish level, allowing analysts to map Chega's advance street by street.

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Analysis by 150 political scientists shows support has nearly quintupled since 1995, with the steepest gains concentrated in the past three years across France, Germany and Austria.

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