Mafalda Livermore, who was dismissed from the Lisbon City Council, responds for the first time on the Grande Jornal da Noite.
Chega party member accused of renting houses to immigrants in exclusive interview with CMTV
Tuesday, 17 March 2026RSS
Context & Explainers
Local accommodation (alojamento local) means short-term tourist rentals—private apartments, houses or rooms rented for days or weeks—that must be registered and licensed with municipal authorities. Municipalities can suspend or cancel licences (Lisbon cancelled about 6,700 licences in early 2026), so travellers and hosts should check a listing's registration and local rules before booking or offering stays.
Chega ("Enough") is a Portuguese far-right populist party founded in 2019 by André Ventura. It positions itself as an anti-establishment movement against what it calls a "rotten and corrupt system" of PS-PSD dominance. The party surged from 1.3% in 2019 to 22.8% in May 2025, becoming parliament's second-largest force with 60 seats. Chega's core platform emphasizes strict immigration control—ending automatic CPLP residency, deporting non-independent immigrants, implementing job-market quotas, and requiring five-year social security contributions before benefit access. It advocates radical constitutional reform, including reducing parliament to 100 members, abolishing the prime minister position for a presidential system, and dismantling public healthcare. Law-and-order policies include life imprisonment and chemical castration proposals.
The party is defined by inflammatory anti-Romani rhetoric, with Ventura convicted multiple times for discrimination. Chega maintains international alignments with European far-right figures including Marine Le Pen, Santiago Abascal, and Matteo Salvini. Mainstream Portuguese parties, including Prime Minister Luís Montenegro's government, have imposed a cordon sanitaire, refusing coalition with Chega despite its parliamentary strength.
