The Portuguese elections are almost here, with more than 10 millions voters choosing who will rule the country for the next four years. It’s already pretty clear according to the polls that the Socialist Party and the left-wing will win these elections just like it did in Spain, but from the ashes of the ‘right-wing’ and ‘conservative’ parties, new alternatives are surging and that is were CHEGA comes in.
André Ventura, known football commentator, became better known his ‘polemic’ statements on the gipsy community two years ago, while running for the Social Democrats for the municipality of Loures, in Lisbon’s outskirts. In his statement, Ventura said that the gipsy community live almost exclusively from government’s subsidies. In an interview for Semanário Sol newspaper, Ventura said “The idea of majority and minority was reversed from the moment minorities became minorities of privilege. This has to end. The Gypsy people, both in Loures and the rest of the country, must internalize the rule of law. And the rule of law cannot be afraid of them, regardless of its consequences.”, referring to the relative impunity that the community has in public services and actually following the law.
Even though Ventura lost his bid for mayor of Loures, he actually managed to win more votes for his then Social Democrat party, from 16% to 21,5% (in a very communist city) and managed to keep his place as a city councillor. Ventura did not stay quiet however and was subjected to an administrative inquiry process for criticizing RTP (Public Television broadcaster) on Facebook for failing to indicate the (gipsy) ethnicity of a family who beat a nurse and a security guard in the hospital of Beja (something that is frequent of this community). The lawsuit was brought by the Commission for Equality and Against Racial Discrimination (CICDR) and André Ventura was summoned to give testimony on March 26 of 2018, indicative of “discrimination and racial hatred”.
Later that year, in October, Ventura would then leave his Social Democrat PSD party. He explained that his resignation as councillor “has to do with national rather than municipal policy issues” and that he was elected by one party and was in the process of launching another.” And that is where CHEGA comes along.
CHEGA!, translating literally to ENOUGH! in English was launched by Ventura and it’s registration as a Portuguese political party was accepted by the Constitutional Court on April 9, 2019. The party, as you can tell by its name, assumes itself as an anti-establishment political party of populist nature. It defends conservatism and nationalism while promoting a diminution of the state’s presence in the economy.
Let’s go through their most juicy measures regarding migration:
– Inform immediately the United Nations of Portugal’s departure from the Global Compact Immigration, the issue of immigration should be dealt with in accordance with reality and the sovereignty of each country.
– Promoting a new European treaty, in line with the countries of the Visegrad group in terms of borders, national sovereignty and respect for values of European culture.
– Deportation of all illegal immigrants to their countries of origin as well as of all immigrants who, even if they have a legal situation, commit crimes that lead to the sentence of effective imprisonment.
– Any illegal immigrant within the country will be excluded from the possibility of regularizing their situation and receiving any state support.
– For requests of nationality, knowing the Portuguese language, spoken and written, as well as cultural integration.
– Loss of nationality for citizens of foreign origin who commit acts of terrorism or attacks on sovereignty, security and independence of Portugal.
– Review and renegotiate all financial, medical, logistics with the PALOP countries and to promote with them a Cooperation Plan for investment management, helping national companies and the flow ordering
migratory.
