The populist football pundit who burst into Portuguese politics: how anti-immigration ex-priest-in-training who called for chemical castration of child rapists led Chega party to ‘historic’ election win, fringed by centre-right

Far-right football expert turned politician Andre Ventura has taken his party to new heights in Portugal’s parliamentary elections. With rising voter support, this means that the populists will play a decisive role in the country’s political future.

The Chega leader, a former priest-in-training who later became a tough TV commentator, disrupted what had long been a two-horse race in the country, with the center-right Social Democrats and center-left Socialists alternating their grip on power. year.

The Social Democrats-led Democratic Alliance (AD) won only by a narrow margin, and is now preparing to govern without an outright majority as Chega warned of instability if she is not included in the government.

“One thing is certain tonight: the two-party system in Portugal is over,” Ventura declared on Sunday, adding that his party “stands ready to be part of a government.”

Chega became the third largest party and quadrupled its parliamentary representation to 48 lawmakers in the 230-seat National Assembly. This means that the AD, which won only 79 seats, may only be able to pass laws with support from the extreme right.

While Ventura enjoys increasing support from his party, Social Democratic leader Luis Montenegro, who is likely to become prime minister, vowed to keep his campaign promise not to negotiate with the populist party.

Chega’s controversial mix of policy promises includes chemical castration for pedophiles, restricting newcomers’ access to social benefits, stricter controls on immigration, higher pensions and the abolition of value-added taxes on essential food products.

Ventura indicated he would be willing to compromise on some of his more extreme policies if it means his party can enter government.

The 41-year-old first attracted political attention in 2017 when – as a candidate for mayor in a city outside Lisbon with the mainstream centre-right PSD party – he blamed Portugal’s small Roma community for crime, accusing them of exploiting social media. welfare system.

The following year he left the PSD and in 2019 he founded Chega, which means ‘Enough’, pledging to fight against corruption and illegal immigration.

“He analyzed the market and became the product that many people want to buy,” wrote journalist Vitor Matos in a recently published biography of Ventura.

“Ambition shapes his ideas, he looks for a clear path to climb socially, in the media and then politically,” Matos added.

Ventura has embraced the support of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and has described Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the anti-immigrant League, as a “good friend.”

He is also pictured beaming next to Geert Wilders, dubbed the ‘Dutch Donald Trump’, whose far-right party won the elections in the Netherlands but failed to form a majority in the months that followed.

He speaks of restoring respect and obedience to police, and has protested in the streets with Movement Zero, a group of disgruntled police officers with suspected extremist ties who are demanding better pay and conditions.

‘In politics you have to be different. And I wanted to be different,” Ventura once said of himself, before adding that his path was guided by a “divine mission.”

Born and raised in a working-class area of ​​Lisbon, Ventura became a fervent Catholic as a teenager and spent a year in a seminary to become a priest, against his parents’ wishes. He says he quit because he fell in love.

After completing his university studies in Ireland, he changed professions several times: he became a law professor, a tax inspector and then a television football pundit.

He is known for his unyielding defense of Lisbon-based club Benfica, Portugal’s most decorated and supported club.

Ventura, who is married without children, tied the knot with Dina Marques Nunes in 2016 and is regularly photographed with the physiotherapist at campaign rallies.

‘It is normal that André wants his wife by his side, with family being one of the most important flags of the party. She is one of the conservative Catholic components that André wants to strengthen,” a source from his party revealed to Portuguese media.

He has attempted to become an author, publishing two novels that have raised eyebrows for their homoeroticism and frequent depictions of female submission.

His second novel ‘The Last Dawn of Islam’, published in 2009, reconstructs the last months in the life of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died in a military hospital in Paris in 2004.

In the run-up to Sunday’s election, Ventura tried to soften his image by appearing on popular morning TV talk shows, happily cycling to the set of a program in a suit.

Under his leadership, Chega has grown rapidly.

It won 1.3 percent of the vote in the 2019 general election, the year it was founded, giving it a seat in parliament – ​​the first time a far-right party had won representation in the Portuguese parliament since a coup in 1974 overthrew a decades-long coup. right-wing dictatorship.

After Chega won 7.2 percent of the vote in the last general election in 2022, giving it 12 seats in Portugal’s 230-seat parliament, Ventura said the country has “completely reconfigured the right.”

The party captured 18 percent in Sunday’s elections, giving it 48 seats in parliament and cementing its place in Portugal’s political landscape.

Ventura predicted that his party will win in the next elections, whether in “six months or one or two years.”