After 3 Violent Murders, Portugal’s Government Cannot Ignore Criminal Migrants

'The ‘right-wing’ dithers on immigration but finds time to rename women "menstruating people".' Portugal needs a CHEGA! government!

From The European Conservative

By Miguel Nunes Silva

The ‘right-wing’ dithers on immigration but finds time to rename women "menstruating people."

Mere days after Portugal’s biggest-ever demonstration against mass immigration, three people were murdered in Santa Apolónia, one of Lisbon’s main railway hubs.

On Sunday, the CHEGA! (CH) party—now Portugal’s third largest but a mere 5 years old—organised a demonstration which gathered thousands protesting against current immigration levels. Of the parties with parliamentary representation, CH is the only one calling for reduced immigration numbers and for a major crackdown on illegal aliens in the country. Another part of its platform is the reinstatement of the Border Control Authority which was abolished by the previous socialist government and replaced by a ‘Migrations Agency’ with few tangible powers.

While the authorities are still conducting their investigation into the Santa Apolónia murders, evidence suggests that criminal elements were involved, with all three victims having died from gunshots to the head, while the owner of the barber-shop-turned-crime-scene has in the past been arrested on drug trafficking charges.

While Portugal is currently ruled by a supposedly ‘right-wing’ coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, not only has the government not bothered with the topic of immigration but its media surrogates maintain the PM’s narrative denying any correlation between immigration and crime rates.

For instance, the Brazilian government has confirmed the possibility that one of Brazil’s most infamous criminal gangs (PCC; Primeiro Comando da Capital) may now have a branch in Portugal, also home to Brazil’s largest diaspora in the world. CH has also continually warned of the impunity with which criminal elements of the gypsy community act, while police and firemen have been hamstrung by ‘antiracist’ guidelines which the Social Democrat (PSD) government has continued with gusto.

Should that suspicion be confirmed, then the incident comes at the most inauspicious time for the PSD government led by prime minister Luís Montenegro.

Having won last March’s election by the slimmest margin in Portugal’s History, his minority government has dithered on the necessity of forming a governing coalition with other political forces in parliament. CHEGA! is too toxic after years of leftist media demonising, egged on by the PSD. The only other option is the Socialist Party (PS) but Montenegro fears the PSD may become indistinguishable from the PS in the eyes of the electorate in the event of a ‘grand coalition’—and that is if the Socialists, leading the polls, were amenable to such a compromise.

The PSD is already under fire from the Right for insisting on removing the term ‘woman’ in favour of ‘menstruating person’ in Health Ministry documents and for refusing to reinvest in the police and firemen, all issues which CH capitalises on.

If ethnic organised crime is found to be involved in the Santa Apolónia murders, Montenegro’s tenure will be further discredited.

This is significant since the PSD’s electoral strategy appears to have consisted in drawing red lines against CH in the hopes of blackmailing its electorate into transferring its vote to the PSD, in order to prevent a return of the socialists to power. This is the reason why it rejected governing coalitions after the March election and why it acted disinterestedly in the budget negotiations for this autumn. Should the budget not pass and a political crisis be triggered risking new elections, the PSD would seek to victimise itself into a second victory, hopefully closer to an absolute majority.

However, such a strategy cannot work if the PSD is forced to start the campaign even more mistrusted by conservative voters. Denying reality makes for a poor strategy when facts catch up with the narrative.