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The sun-soaked Algarve region on Portugal\u2019s Southern coast is a place where guitar-strumming backpackers gather by fragrant orange trees and digital nomads hunt for laid-back vibes. It is not exactly what comes to mind when one envisions a stronghold of far-right political sentiment.<\/p>\n
But it is in the Algarve region where the anti-establishment Chega party finished first in national elections this month<\/a>, both unsettling Portuguese politics and injecting new anxiety throughout the European establishment. Nationwide, Chega received 18 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a strong signal for Europe and for the world,\u201d said Jo\u00e3o Paulo da Silva Gra\u00e7a, a freshly elected Chega lawmaker, sitting at the party\u2019s new Algarve headquarters as tourists asked for vegan custard tarts at a bakery downstairs. \u201cOur values must prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n Chega, which means \u201cenough\u201d in Portuguese, is the first hard-right party to gain ground in the political scene in Portugal since 1974 and the end of the nationalist dictatorship of Ant\u00f3nio de Oliveira Salazar. Its formula for success mixed promises of greater law and order with tougher immigration measures and an appeal to economic resentments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Chega\u2019s breakthrough has presented Portugal as the latest version of a now familiar quandary for Europe<\/a>, where the inroads of hard-right parties have made it increasingly difficult for mainstream competitors to avoid them<\/a>.<\/p>\n The leader of Portugal\u2019s center-right coalition, which won the election, has refused to ally with Chega, but experts say the result is likely to be an unstable minority government that may not last long.<\/p>\n Chega showed once again that taboos that had kept hard-right parties out of power, foremost the long shadow of a right-wing dictatorship from last century, were falling. Today the hard right has made gains in Italy, Spain and Germany, among other places.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Portugal had been considered the exception. It emerged from the Salazar dictatorship as a progressive society that supported liberal drug laws and showed little appetite for the far right. In recent years it became a booming tourist destination, flush with foreign investment<\/a>, expatriates<\/a> and a growing economy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n