President of the Assembly of the Republic (Assembleia da República) José Pedro Aguiar-Branco rejected a request from the Livre party to schedule an urgent debate on housing. Aguiar-Branco ruled that the proposal violated parliamentary regulations limiting mandatory urgent debates to one every fortnight, noting that Chega had called a debate 13 days earlier. Livre had sought to debate the creation of a national housing service to address the ongoing housing crisis.
Parliamentary President Rejects Livre's Urgent Housing Debate Request
Monday, 19 October 2026AI summary
Context & Explainers
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.
José Pedro Aguiar-Branco is the President of the Assembly of the Republic, Portugal’s parliament, elected to the post in 2024. A lawyer from Porto and a senior PSD figure, he previously served as Minister of Justice and as Minister of National Defence.
- Leader: Rui Tavares
- Ideology: Green left-wing politics, libertarian socialism
LIVRE (meaning "Free") is a green left-wing party founded in 2014 by historian and former MEP Rui Tavares. The party struggled for years before finally electing Tavares as its first MP in 2022, then grew to 4 seats in 2024 and 6 seats in 2025—making it the only progressive party to gain ground in recent elections. LIVRE focuses on environmental protection, human rights, and progressive social policies while maintaining a pro-European stance.