The President of the PSD in the Algarve called Chegi’s victory a protest vote against “uncertainty and insecurity”

The President of the PSD Algarve said this Monday that Chegi’s victory in the region represents a vote of protest in an area where people live in conditions of “uncertainty and insecurity”, reinforced by economic cycles.

“People either have the prospect of realizing their life projects through work, with the prospect of improving their lives, or the next day, with such cycles, they end up unemployed, or the company goes bankrupt,” he told Luca Cristova Norte, elected, on second place on the AD list.

Chega won Sunday’s legislative elections in the Faro district with 27.19% of the votes and elected three of the nine deputies, the same number of seats received by the PS, as well as the Democratic Alliance (PSD/CDU/PPM), the party winning in the first district.

Cristovao Norte insisted that the expansion of positive and negative economic cycles “leads to great uncertainty on the part of people, great doubts, great insecurity” and that “this leads to people joining protest parties more easily.” [como o Chega]because they don’t expect anything anymore, because they are disappointed.”

Having reached this conclusion, the Social Democrat began by mentioning that the Algarve’s economy is mainly based on tourism, which is “very susceptible to economic cycles”, which increases their influence.

The elected MP gave the example that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the country’s economy shrank by 8% and the Algarve’s economy fell by 16%, and when the country grows, the Algarve grows at a much faster rate, which leads to this. there is “uncertainty and insecurity” and even “a certain amount of schizophrenia” in people’s lives.

But according to Cristovan Norte, there is a second important reason for the protest vote in Chega, which has to do with “the fact that in the structural issues of the region, measures have been taken over the years to guarantee the implementation of these investments.”

The regional leader of the PSD cited as examples the lack of investment from the government to solve the problem of drought in the region, the delay in the construction of the Algarve Central Hospital or the issue of the reclassification of Estrada Nacional 125, to name just a few examples.

The PS, which managed to elect five deputies in Faro in the last legislative elections, moved into second place with 25.46% of the votes, behind two deputies from Chege, which elected a deputy from this constituency in 2022.

The PSD, which ran in coalition with the SDS and PPM in these elections, received 22.39% of the vote in the Algarve, retaining the three seats it won alone in 2022.