Thousands of people take to the streets to celebrate, this Thursday (25), the 50th anniversary of the “Carnation Revolution” in Portugal, which overthrew the longest fascist dictatorship in Europe and inaugurated democracy in the country.
António de Oliveira Salazar governed Portugal from 1932 to 1968, but the regime lasted another six years under successor Marcelo Caetano, only collapsing on April 25, 1974.
The almost bloodless revolution was led by a group of junior Army officers who wanted democracy and an end to the long-running wars against independence movements in the African colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau.
They considered these wars, which killed thousands of young Portuguese recruits, as unjust and unwinnable.
The military coup by the “Capitães de Abril” group triggered rapid decolonization, putting an end to more than five centuries of Portuguese empire in Africa.
University of Lisbon political scientist António Costa Pinto said that although the majority of Portuguese people support democracy and are proud of the 25th April revolution, there would be “an elephant in the room” in this year's celebrations with the recent increase in support for the populist and anti-immigration Chega Party.
“Chega attracts those who have a revisionist view of history with the idea that colonialism and the empire were not bad and that the glorious Portuguese past and its symbols should be valued”, said Costa Pinto.
A study published by the Lisbon Institute of Social Sciences (ICS) and the Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE) concluded that 23% of those questioned considered that if current political leaders followed Salazar's “ideals”, Portugal could “recover its greatness ”.
Chega makes frequent public use of Salazar's motto “God, patriotism and family”, to which the party added “work”.
Chega's leader, André Ventura, denied that he or his party are fascists, despite being anti-system and wanting to change Portugal's Constitution.
“I'm not a fascist, I was born after fascism. We never hide that we don't like this system, this Constitution. But that doesn’t mean we don’t like democracy,” he said in 2021.
Founded in 2019, Chega is the third largest party in the European Union member state, having quadrupled its group of legislators to 50 in the March elections.
Chega capitalized on the housing crisis triggered by the constant rise in rents, as well as low wages, a drop in healthcare and cases of alleged corruption involving the main parties in the poorest country in Western Europe.
Source: CNN Brasil
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