After three violent murders, the Portuguese government cannot ignore criminal migrants ━ The European Conservative

Just days after Portugal’s largest demonstration against mass immigration, three people were murdered in Santa Apolónia, one of Lisbon’s main railway hubs.

CHEGA takes place on Sunday! The party (CH) – now Portugal’s third largest but only five years old – organized a demonstration in which thousands protested against the current immigration quota. Of the parties with parliamentary representation, CH is the only one that calls for a reduction in immigration numbers and a comprehensive crackdown on illegal immigrants in the country. Another part of their platform is the reintroduction of the border control authority, which was abolished by the previous socialist government and replaced by a “migration agency” with few concrete powers.

While authorities are still investigating the Santa Apolónia murders, evidence suggests that criminal elements were involved. All three victims died from shots to the head, while the owner of the hair salon that became the scene of the crime was present. The past was arrested for drug trafficking.

While Portugal is currently governed by a supposedly “right-wing” coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, not only does the government not care about the issue of immigration, but its surrogates in the media are also sticking to the Prime Minister’s narrative that excludes any connection between immigration and crime rates are denied.

For example, the Brazilian government has acknowledged the possibility that one of Brazil’s most notorious criminal gangs (PCC; Primeiro Comando da Capital) may now have an office in Portugal, which is also home to Brazil’s largest diaspora in the world. CH has also repeatedly warned of the impunity with which criminal elements of the Gypsy community operate, while the police and fire services are hampered by “anti-racist” policies that the Social Democratic (PSD) government is enthusiastically pursuing.

If these suspicions are confirmed, the incident will come at the worst possible time for the PSD government under Prime Minister Luís Montenegro.

After winning elections last March by the narrowest margin in Portugal’s history, his minority government balked at the need to form a governing coalition with other political forces in parliament. CHEGA! is too toxic after years of demonization by the left-wing media, egged on by the PSD. The only other option is the Socialist Party (PS), but Montenegro fears that the PSD could become indistinguishable from the PS in the eyes of voters in the event of a “grand coalition” – and that would be the case if the Socialists , who are at the top in the polls, would be amenable to such a compromise.

The PSD is already under fire from the right for insisting on dropping the term “woman” in favor of “menstruating person” in Health Ministry documents and for refusing to reinvest in police and fire services – all issues which CH is capitalizing on.

If it turns out that ethnic organized crime is involved in the Santa Apolónia murders, Montenegro’s term in office will be further discredited.

This is significant because the PSD’s electoral strategy appears to have been to draw red lines against CH in the hope of blackmailing its electorate into transferring their vote to the PSD in order to prevent the Socialists from returning to power. For this reason, she rejected government coalitions after the March election and remained disinterested in this fall’s budget negotiations. Should the budget not be passed and trigger a political crisis that risks new elections, the PSD would try to claim a second victory, hopefully closer to an absolute majority.

However, such a strategy cannot work if the PSD is forced to start the election campaign in which conservative voters are even more distrustful. Denying reality is a bad strategy when the facts overtake the narrative.