Lawyer António Garcia Pereira filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office, asking that the legality of Chega’s existence be assessed. He claims that the party promotes a racist ideology, pointing out as examples the posters where André Ventura states that “Portugal is not Bangladesh” and the praise for the Salazar regime. For Garcia Pereira, these demonstrations violate the Constitution and the law on political parties. “Democracy is not and cannot be an anything-goes regime”, he told Rádio Renascença, justifying the initiative as a way of forcing the Public Ministry to take a position.
In response, André Ventura declared to the Lusa agency that a possible extinction of Chega “would not only be an affront to democracy, but would also extinguish democracy itself”. He added that these actions always appear during electoral periods and represent, according to him, an attempt to silence the party through force, and not through debate.
This is a delicate topic, which requires rigorous legal analysis and in-depth political reflection. The Portuguese Constitution prohibits parties that promote fascist or racist ideologies. It is up to the competent authorities to determine whether Chega’s speeches and materials meet this definition. However, it is important to emphasize that the Constitution does not prohibit populism, demagogy or praise for authoritarian regimes. It also does not prevent conservative or nationalist views, even if they are contrary to the cosmopolitanism that characterizes a large part of Portuguese society.
Being contrary to progressive values is not, in itself, synonymous with racism or fascism. Although it is public that some Chega supporters defend extremist ideas, jurists are not unanimous regarding the ideological nature of the party. The interpretation of the law, in this case, is far from consensual – the same applies to the analysis of controversial posters.
On a political level, the issue is even more sensitive. Banning Chega would be the equivalent of dropping an atomic bomb on the Portuguese political system, excluding a quarter of the electorate. It would be a measure of force with unpredictable consequences, which could fuel victimization and open space for some radical movements that gravitate to Chega’s right. This electorate, deprived of parliamentary representation, would continue to exist and migrate to wherever it was given a voice, inside or outside the democratic system. The risk of radicalization of this electorate, left orphaned and disbelieving, would be real.
For all these reasons, democracy is not protected by silence, but by debate, scrutiny and institutional firmness. Keeping Chega within the constitutional system is, in itself, a way of containing the extremism of some of its leaders and supporters, as happens, in fact, in the opposite ideological pole, where there are people who defend political regimes where the concept of freedom and democracy is very different from ours.
In a democracy, ideas are fought with arguments, not with prohibitions. Democratic values are reinforced when everyone has the same right to participate in political life. And, contrary to what many politicians and commentators think, the people are not stupid.