Chega Sets Its Leadership Vote for 31 October and a November Convention, the First Since the Constitutional Court Struck Down the Last Two
The National Council approved a direct election on 31 October and a convention on 20 to 22 November. Ventura is standing again, nominations close Monday, and the party still runs on its 2019 statutes.
Chega's members will choose their party leader in a direct vote on 31 October, and the party will hold its national convention on 20, 21 and 22 November. Its Conselho Nacional (National Council), the party's highest body between conventions, approved both dates at a meeting in a Lisbon hotel on Friday night, according to an official party source quoted by Observador. Nominations for the leadership close on Monday 12 October.
André Ventura, who founded Chega in 2019 and has led it ever since, confirmed on Friday that he will stand again. He first announced his candidacy on 1 October, saying he would present a motion centred on the goal of governing Portugal. No venue has been announced for the convention, which will be the party's seventh in seven years.
A convention the courts keep sending back
The National Directorate proposed the November dates about a month ago, with two aims: to elect the party's national bodies, and to answer questions about its organisation and statutes raised by the Tribunal Constitucional (Constitutional Court). The convention had been planned for May and was postponed.
That legal background is what makes this meeting more than a formality. The last convention, held in Viana do Castelo in January 2024, elected a leadership that the Constitutional Court later declared invalid, and the court had done the same with the convention before it. It has also turned down the party's successive amendments to its statutes, so Chega is still governed by the statutes it registered in 2019, Observador reports.
It will also be Chega's first convention since it became the second-largest party in parliament, and since Ventura ran for president at the start of this year.
"Not behind me, but beside me"
In a speech of about 45 minutes, Ventura used the meeting to call for unity after internal elections in which several of the party's district structures changed leaders. Differences were normal, he said, in a party that "recently reached 100,000 members", but they had to be put aside. "If we want to win the country, we first have to show that we have a party that is united and ready to govern," he told the council.
He warned party officials that "the time of blind trust and blank cheques is over" and that "the country will also be watching" the people the party puts forward. "I feel ready," he said. He wanted a party "not behind me, but on my left, on my right, on every side", one that knows "history will not repeat itself this time. This time we are going to win."
He also attacked the Socialist Party (PS) for preparing to let the 2027 budget through, and spoke of a "brutal increase" in the cost of living. The council was also due to discuss Chega's position on the budget. No decision on that had been reported by Saturday afternoon. As we reported on 8 October, the party has threatened to vote against unless the retirement age is lowered and VAT is cut on fuel and basic foods. Parliament votes on the budget's general principles on 28 October, three days before Chega's leadership ballot.
Ventura is also busy in parliament this autumn. He chairs the parliamentary inquiry into Luís Neves, the former head of the Polícia Judiciária (Judicial Police), a role the Livre party has criticised as a conflict of interest.
