Portugal, a country once highly celebrated for its ability to escape the clutches of authoritarianism, has succumbed to it.

Before accusations of exaggeration start flying, let me pre-empt them by offering one of my own: denial. A denial as fervent and omnipresent as it has always been, because it has always been easier to look the other way, to reassure ourselves that things are not that bad, that institutions will somehow hold, that the line has not yet been crossed.

Why say this now, following the defeat of Chega’s André Ventura in what was, undeniably, the largest margin of victory in a presidential election since parliamentary democracy exists in Portugal?

António José Seguro, 63, former leader of the Socialist Party, won outright with 66 per cent of the popular vote. He is, by all accounts, a decent man, a humanist, and a figure fairly well respected across Portuguese society. His long absence from frontline politics worked in his favour, lending him a credibility few active party figures now enjoy, while his ability to demarcate himself from the party he once led proved decisive in a country deeply fatigued with partisan politics.

Yet this landslide, impressive as it is, should not be confused with democratic health. It should be read instead as a warning sign, one that many will choose to ignore, because ignoring it is far more comfortable than confronting what it implies.

A far-right candidate does not secure roughly one third of the vote by accident. Seven years ago, Chega did not exist. Today, it is firmly embedded in Portuguese political life and increasingly poised to become the main opposition force (it already is the third largest party with parliamentary representation).

This did not happen because people suddenly became more hateful or less democratic, but because politics was slowly hollowed out and reduced to management. People have been continuously invited to vote while real power has drifted elsewhere.

This matters, because those who voted for Chega are not an abstract problem to be managed, nor a moral category to be dismissed. They are not simply “deplorables”, nor can they be written off as fascists and ignored. Thirty-three per cent of voters matter, whether we like their choice or not, and any politics that starts by pretending otherwise has already failed.

And, as ever, the reaction followed a depressingly familiar script. Instead of questioning the system that produced this reality, commentators rushed to tell us that the real problem had always been the Left.

The logic goes something like this: if people who once voted for left-wing parties are now voting for the far right, then the Left must have been fascist all along. “Communists”, a term now casually applied to anyone to the left of the Socialist Party, are suddenly recast as the true extremists. Conveniently, this narrative absolves those who governed for decades, while placing the blame on those who never held power, and treating disappointment as ideological conversion.

This denial allows the system to reproduce itself while hardening the very people it claims to oppose.

As in much of Europe, the Socialist Party has come to stand in for “the Left” as a whole. After governing Portugal repeatedly over the past thirty years, in tandem with the PSD, it now carries the accumulated weight of stagnation, corruption scandals, and broken promises. In the public imagination, the Left no longer represents transformation, but continuity: a caretaker of a system that no longer delivers dignity, security, or hope. In other words, socialism for the few, austerity for the rest.

In this context, everything to the left of the Socialists is blamed even more harshly.

This is where any meaningful conversation with Chega voters must begin. Their suspicion of the Socialist Party is often justified. Their distrust of the governing PSD is hardly irrational. Decades of disappointment have taught them that alternation in government rarely translates into change in their lives. Ignoring this, or moralising it away, only entrenches resentment.

Bloco de Esquerda and the Communist Party have paid a particularly heavy price. Not because they governed badly – they did not govern – but because they became convenient scapegoats in a political environment that no longer distinguishes between those who administered the system and those who opposed it. Former Communist strongholds now voting Chega is a symptom of abandonment, not ideological conversion. It reflects a belief that the Left has become indistinguishable from the parties it once challenged.

Where the Left came to be associated with managing decline, the far right sells itself as rupture. A lie, of course, but one that works precisely because so many truths have been hollowed out.

If parties to the left of the Socialist Party are serious about confronting this, they must stop living in its shadow. Bloco, Livre, and the PCP cannot continue to be perceived as junior partners, silent enablers, or reliable allies of a party whose record has generated much of the anger now exploited by Chega. Without clear political and rhetorical demarcation, they will continue to be blamed for policies they did not design, while voters who might be persuadable drift further away.

The so-called liberal centre, meanwhile, exposed itself completely. João Cotrim de Figueiredo, leader of Iniciativa Liberal and a candidate in the first round, initially refused to choose between Ventura and Seguro in the runoff. By his own admission, this placed the two on the same political plane. In doing so, liberalism confirmed what it has been signalling for some time now: that the centre and the far right are two sides of the same coin, united by a shared commitment to preserving the existing order.

This refusal matters. When the choice is between authoritarian regression and a flawed but democratic alternative, neutrality is alignment.

It is important to be precise here. Seguro’s candidacy does not fall neatly into this logic. Although he comes from a party that has repeatedly enabled centrist politics, this was a presidential election, not a parliamentary one. Seguro ran precisely by distancing himself from the party, positioning himself instead as an institutional brake, a figure of restraint in the face of authoritarian advance. And voters recognised that distinction.

The liberal centre, by contrast, made no such distinction. More revealing still was the claim, circulated by Iniciativa Liberal on its social media channels, that Chega was a socialist party. When authoritarian nationalism can be casually rebranded as socialism, political language is not merely abused but deliberately emptied of meaning.

To the left of the Socialist Party, political space continues to narrow. Bloco and the Communists continue to decline. Livre has grown modestly, aided by Jorge Pinto’s excellent presidential campaign and a more combative presence in parliament. It presents itself as pro-European but critical of the European Union, arguing for reform rather than rupture. In Portugal, where support for the European project remains high, this is an intelligible position albeit one that I find lackluster amid the EU’s moral and ethical bankruptcy.

Portugal is not an exception. What we are witnessing is part of a broader European pattern in which democracy survives as a form while its substance is stripped away. Elections still take place. Winners are declared. Hope is invoked with ritualistic regularity. But real power remains insulated from democratic control, and people feel it, even if they struggle to articulate it.

As Seguro himself said on election night: if politics does not serve to change people’s lives for the better, then it serves absolutely no purpose at all. Those words will follow his presidency, whether he likes it or not. If he does not help restore a politics that improves material conditions, confronts power rather than manages it, and inspires belief rather than resignation, then his presidency will fail on its own terms. And failure will be felt, once again, by those who have already been disappointed far too many times.

Stopping the far right at the ballot box matters. It always will. But it only buys time, and time alone has never changed anything.

If we are serious about confronting authoritarianism, reassurance is not enough. Nor is moral superiority. The task is persuasion, organisation, and clarity. It means recognising that those who voted for Chega are not beyond reach, that their anger has causes, and that those causes must be addressed honestly, without condescension and without denial.

Without organisation, without political courage, without a willingness to break clearly with a system that has consistently failed the many while protecting the few, the conditions that produced Chega will remain firmly in place.

And next time, denial may not come with such a comfortable margin.

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