PS and PSD share two seats in the Europe and Outside Europe constituencies, respectively, with Chega taking the other two seats, after results showed a massive vote for this party in Switzerland.
Paulo Pisco, the PS frontrunner for the Europe constituency, has so far won enough votes to be re-elected.
Asked about the results so far of the Portuguese emigrants in the March 10 legislative elections, which will remove Augusto Santos Silva (PS) from Parliament, Pisco said that the PS “will have to work hard to recover the two MPs it has now lost”.
“We have to understand the causes that led to this result and work in some of the countries where the vote was not in our favor,” he told Lusa.
He added: “The PS is contesting these elections very vehemently, very honorably, and there has been a balance between the different forces. The victory that Chega is achieving is built on the more than 40% of the vote that it won in just one country, which is Switzerland.”
“It’s a strange and anomalous result, but we have to understand the reasons for it and, if there is anything that needs to be clarified with the voters in Switzerland, we have to understand it,” he continued.
Social Democrat José Cesário, who expects his election in the Out of Europe constituency to be confirmed at 7pm, regretted that his party was unable to win back the MP it lost two years ago in the Europe constituency.
Regarding the growth of Chega, particularly in Switzerland, he said that “the socialist political power has totally neglected its relationship with the communities, in a global way. In Switzerland it’s more evident, because emigrants in Switzerland are the ones who contribute the most to the national economy, in per capita income, per person, the ones who send the most remittances to Portugal, they make an impressive contribution in the tourist area, in real estate.”
These Portuguese are “without an answer to their problems, ignored in health centers, in finance, in so many public services, even in town halls and above all in consulates, and they have decided to pound the table. It’s their free choice, I wish it were otherwise, but I fully understand their behavior and their decision regarding the vote they made.”
José Cesário said that his goal and battle will be “the same as always”: “To have better services for people, to give more rights to Portuguese people who are outside Portugal, to ensure that the public administration works more quickly, that people can have more access to culture, education and the teaching of Portuguese to their children.”
Carlos Gonçalves (PSD) didn’t manage to get elected for the Europe constituency and, for the time being, he was pleased with “the increase in the vote from the Portuguese communities”.
Gonçalves interpreted the election of two deputies for Chega (Europe and Outside Europe) as “a protest vote” and “a feeling of revolt”.
Strangely enough, the Social Democrat said that “we need to know the reasons why that community has a greater sense of revolt and protest than others”.
Manuel Magno, Chega’s candidate for the Outer Europe constituency, for which the results so far point, said that this had always been his expectation.
“The big demand we have to solve is the situation of communities outside Europe, outside Portugal. I live in the diaspora, I work in the diaspora, I know the day-to-day life of the communities and they have always been treated as if we were second class. We’re not,” he told Lusa.
Magno said he wants to give the Portuguese communities the respect they deserve.
For his part, José Dias Fernandes, head of the Chega por Europa list, who is in Paris, was pleased with the results that have so far elected him for the Europe constituency, considering this a “normal” result, given what he encountered “on the ground” during the campaign.
He told Lusa by telephone that the vote Chega got in Europe, especially in Switzerland, was a protest against the way the media treated his party “negatively”.
“We were expecting this result. We’ve been on the ground door-to-door for a long time,” he said.
The counting of the votes cast by Portuguese emigrants, who made their choice by post, ends today, revealing the four MEPs for the Europe and Outside Europe constituencies.
The counting and registration of these votes from Portuguese residents abroad has been taking place at the Lisbon Congress Center since Monday, when more than 140,000 votes were counted. On Tuesday, a further 117,000 votes were counted.
The votes that arrived by post by 17:00 today will be scrutinized and recorded, in a process that will last until 19:00.
More than 1.5 million letters with ballot papers were sent to 189 destinations as of February 4 and ballots began arriving in Portugal on February 20. 5,283 voters chose to vote in person.