‘Enough’ of What? An Analysis of Chega’s Populist Radical Right Agenda

Abstract

In 2019, for the first time in Portugal, a populist radical right party (PRR) made it to parliament. Since then voting intentions for Chega (Enough) have grown with the party leader finishing third in the 2021 presidential race. This article provides an empirical-based account of the party’s agenda and ideological profile. It asks to what extent Chega shares the core ideological characteristics of the PRR family, i.e. nativism, populism and authoritarianism. Relying on a battery of primary data (party documents, legislative proposals, official party posts on Facebook), the article combines qualitative and quantitative text analysis. It shows that Chega’s agenda falls well into the radical right profile, not only in positional terms but also in terms of issue salience.