By Álvaro Peñas
“Chega loudly denounces what the Portuguese used to say in a low voice”
Interview with Diogo Pacheco de Amorim, the ideologue of the Portuguese party “Chega!” (“Enough!”). He was the author of the 2019 electoral program for the legislature, the “ideological matrix” and the “founding texts” of the party, Vice-President from its inception until the last Congress on May 30th last year and advisor to André Ventura in the Assembly of the Republic. During his intense political career, Pacheco de Amorim was one of the inclusive student movements that opposed decolonization and defended Portugal and the overseas provinces as a whole. He had to go into exile in Madrid during the turbulent years of the Carnation Revolution and was a member of the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Portugal.
The Chega’s last congress served to reaffirm André Ventura’s leadership and reorganize the party for local elections. The congress was attended by Matteo Salvini. The chairman of the Lega spoke of the union of people’s parties, conservative parties and identity parties: “My dream is to bring the best of these three families together to oppose the socialists and communists and those who are against a Europe of peoples and freedom” . Chega and Lega are members of the European group “Identity and Democracy” (ID).
A recent poll gives them 8.3% of the vote and confirms them as the third political force, just behind the Conservatives and the Socialists. What is the success of the Chega?
This success lies in our ability to loudly denounce everything that most voters used to say in a low voice for fear of socialist power and political correctness. In fact, since the April 25th revolution, there has been no truly conservative and liberal party on the Portuguese political stage. Neither the PSD nor the CDS are truly conservative and right-wing parties. They are center-right parties of social democratic origin and they do not confront the Socialist Party because they share many of its values. Chega does not share any of the values of the socialist area and is therefore quite able to criticize these values from the front and the results of these values, which are implemented in concrete politics,
In the last presidential election you achieved your best results in former communist strongholds. How do you explain this move in favor of Chega?
Much of this electorate is not truly communist and voted for the communists because they were the only ones who denounced the situations of blatant injustice that the parties of the system created and perpetuated. Chega denounced these situations more clearly and decisively than the Portuguese Communist Party. Because of the support it has given the Socialist Party government over the past few years, it has finally agreed to government measures that have harmed the most vulnerable voters in particular.
Your success has made the Portuguese left and the extreme left very nervous, and they have gone so far that they have called for your party to be banned on several occasions.
Yes, they are very nervous because no matter how hard they try to denigrate us in the media. We’re still going up in the polls and they don’t see how to stop us in the usual political struggle in democracies. So they are trying to use the methods that the extreme left has always used in countries where it has gained decisive influence: using the judicial machinery that has infiltrated it.
Is there an attempt by the mainstream parties to isolate Chega?
Yes, there is, and in a very clear way: the attempt to ostracize us is one of the most frontal versions of that attempt. The other is to silence us in the media and, if that doesn’t work, to shamelessly lie and slander.
As in Spain, the left is trying to rewrite history. I wanted to ask you about two subjects, the death of Lieutenant Colonel Marcelino da Mata, Portugal’s most decorated soldier, and the proposal by Socialist MP Ascenso Simoes to demolish the Monument to the Discoveries.
As everywhere, the left wants to rewrite history and will do so if we don’t stop them. To do this, the left uses its almost exclusive control over the machinery of public education, science, the social sciences and the world of culture. This is a situation that urgently needs strong political action to be reversed and that we will give full priority to when we are in government.
In September, voters in Portugal will again go to the polls for local elections. What do you expect from these elections? Where do you hope to get the best results?
We hope that we will be able to appoint mayors in all municipalities in the country, both at the municipal level and, as far as possible, at the district level. The local elections are very important in gaining a foothold across the country and cementing the support that has been shown at the national level in the presidential election. We hope to be the third party in the number of votes and we hope to get our best results in the major metropolitan areas and throughout the area south of the Tagus.
André Ventura has pointed out that Chega will not be the crutch of the PSD. What policies will Chega pursue in the places where their voices matter?
At these points, Chega will decide on a case-by-case basis. But possible coalitions with the PSD will always depend on whether the PSD accepts us in the government of the municipalities and whether the political action in these municipalities takes our most important election proposals into account.
Source: EL CORREO DE ESPAÑA