The AD - PSD/CDS Coalition won Sunday's legislative elections, with 89 deputies, if the three elected by the AD coalition with the PPM in the Azores join forces, while the PS and Chega tied in the number of elected to parliament, 58.

The director of Diário de Notícias, Filipe Alves, writes in the editorial that the results show a political earthquake. “From now on, the leader of Chega will be the main opposition figure and the one who will be conditioned is the PS”, he adds.

For Alves, “the PS is between a rock and a hard place: if it does not make the AD Government viable, it will be handing the country over to Chega, at a time when Portugal is following an international trend of a strong rise in populist and anti-European movements”.

The director argues that “the best thing the PS can do, at this moment, is to reorganize itself with new leadership, heal its wounds and prepare for the next battle, under penalty of following the path of the French PS or the German SPD”.

Alves also considers the possible impact of the “strong growth of Chega” on the priorities of the next Government.

“What victory is this?” asks JN, in an editorial, highlighting the “break with the political reality of post-25 April Portugal: the country centred on two major parties, PSD and PS, has disappeared, with a (more) tripartite Portugal emerging, with the Chega extremists on the rise since they first submitted themselves to the vote”.

Noting the increase in the number of benches with only one deputy, the newspaper writes that it is “admissible to conclude that the best that Luís Montenegro managed to do was to strengthen the right-wing extremists – leveraged by the algorithms of social networks, where false and unverified information proliferates – and the fall of the socialists, the democrats who, with a sense of State, made the Government program and the Budget viable for him”.

“Death” of democracy

“A new country, smelling of the old” is the title of Público’s editorial, which begins by saying that “the bipartisanship that marked 50 years of democracy is, at least for now, dead”.

The newspaper's director states that the deterioration of the “founding party of democracy” is “at the level of a hecatomb”, adding that the “protest that brought votes to the left has shifted entirely to the right”.

“Parties like BE or PCP are in danger of extinction and not even the newest Livre party has managed to overcome IL. The red country to the south is a historical memory, now that the dominant colour is ‘Chega’ blue”, adds David Pontes.

Pontes emphasizes that, if the “rise of Chega is a gigantic defeat for the left, it is also the failure of the strategy followed by Luís Montenegro in the last year. PSD and PS were too busy fighting each other without showing themselves capable of containing those who are a parliamentary blockade and a danger to democracy”, referring to Chega.

“The parties have to look at themselves and understand how they have aged so badly that they manage to make voting attractive” for a party that cannot “congregate the minimum of respectability”, the editorial writes.

“Historical catastrophe"

In the Correio da Manhã editorial, director Carlos Rodrigues writes that Luís Montenegro "gains new strength to govern" and also classifies the PS result as a "historical catastrophe".

Considering that, if the PS ends up with a parliamentary group smaller than Chega, this represents “a significant political humiliation”, and “Pedro Nuno Santos understood the essence of the message, and leaves the scene with dignity”, he says.

The director also notes that the PS is “under pressure due to the proximity of the municipal elections, and the lack of a presidential candidate”.

In the Jornal de Negócios editorial, Celso Filipe writes that the AD's victory is clear and gives Montenegro the opportunity to continue as prime minister, "maintaining the red line he drew in relation to Chega".