Foreign Residents Urged to Register to Vote in Portuguese Local Elections

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At a time when changes in immigration and nationality laws hang in the balance, foreign residents are being reminded that they must register by mid-August at their junta de freguesia (parish) to vote in Portugal’s municipal elections on Sunday, October 12.

Voting registration must occur 60 days before election day, according to Carla Luis, a member of the Comissâo Nacional de Eleiçoes (National Commission for Elections in Portugal).

Foreign residents may not vote in national elections.

According to the Alto Comissariado para as Migraçoes (ACM) (High Commission on Migration), the following groups are eligible to vote in local elections:

-- Portuguese and Brazilian citizens;

-- European Union nationals;

-- United Kingdom citizens with residence in Portugal prior to Brexit;

-- Cape Verdeans with residence for more than two years,

-- And due to reciprocity agreements, citizens of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela with residence of more than three years.

Eligible immigrants also may run for local office, according to the Comissâo Nacional de Eleiçoes.

Documents necessary for voting registration vary depending on citizenship. For European Union nationals and pre-Brexit United Kingdom subjects, the requirements are a document of identification along with a certificate of registration as a European Union resident or a permanent residency card, according to the Comissâo Nacional de Eleiçoes.

If the aforementioned documents do not include an address, proof of residence may be provided using another document which does state the address, such as a rental agreement or the receipt for a water or electricity bill.

Voting registration is automatic for Portuguese born in Portugal and abroad.

Low Political Participation

Foreign residents have low political participation in Portugal. This lack of activity favors populist rhetoric and compromises integration, according to É preciso promever a participação politica dos imigrantes (The need to promote political participation of immigrants) (February 26, 2024), Office of Economics, Business and Public Policy at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto (FEP).

Immigrants represent 9.8 percent of the total population, according to Portugal: Immigration Barometer, Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation (January 30).

"Of these foreign residents, just 34,165, or 3.3 percent, at the end of 2024, represented only 0.3 percent of the registration total, which explains the little attention given to this segment of voters and the exploration of the theme of immigration, crucial for the economic growth of the country, but used in a populist way by some political parties," according to the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto (FEP) study.

Of these, 34,165 electoral-registered residents, 16,985 had acquired Portuguese citizenship, reported Euronews (May 16). For the remaining residents, registration is voluntary.

Of the total registered voters, 15,163 were from European Union nations, and 18,552 from other countries. In the latter category, the majority were Brazilian (25.03 percent) and Cape Verdean (16.89 percent).

Immigrant membership in political parties is marginal or non-existent, similar to the situation in the rest of Europe, according to the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto (FEP) study. If parties actively recruited immigrants, diversity would be better reflected in political decisions. Immigration participation in political life would be an incentive to opening up society to new ideas and public policies. It would emphasize more effective integration and a greater permanence, crucial for economic growth. It also would contribute to the reduction of populism.

Chega Fanned Debates on Immigration Policy

The municipal elections of 2021 were the first which featured candidates of Chega, a radical right-wing populist party, led by André Ventura, a former football commentator.

“Ventura first appeared on Portugal’s political scene in 2017 as a candidate for the center-right Social Democratic Party (PSD) during regional elections in Loures, on the outskirts of the capital, Lisbon. Although he lost that election, Ventura made a name for himself as an outspoken politician with a penchant for fanning the flames of politically charged debates, such as those surrounding Roma encampments and immigration policy," according to Foreign Policy (January 26, 2021).

In the 2019 election, Chega won one seat in the Assembleia da República, "the first time a candidate from a far-right party had gained power on the national stage, marking an end to the period of Portuguese exceptionalism to the populist sentiment gaining traction across Europe". In 2022, it won 12 seats and was the third most-voted party. In 2024, it more than quadrupled its set count to 50.

In this year's election, Chega won 60 out of 230 seats, overtaking the Socialist Party's tally of 58 seats to achieve second place. The Democratic Alliance (AD) -- composed of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the CDS -- People's Party (CDS-PP) and the People's Monarchist Party (PPM) -- won the largest number of seats -- 91.

During the campaign for the national election in May of this year, immigration became a hotly contested topic, reported Euronews (May 16).

Proposed Changes of Immigration Legislation

Two pieces of immigration legislation have been proposed and are scheduled for a vote in the Assembleia da República, or Parliament, one on July 16 and the other in September.

The Foreigners' Law is expected to be approved on July 16, reported Público Brasil (July 9). The Nationality Law is scheduled for a vote in the Assembleia da República in September.

The proposed modification of the Foreigners' Law would alter the legal regime for the entry, stay, departure and removal of foreigners from Portugal, restrict family reunification, end work-seeking visas for those who are not highly qualified, eliminate the possibility of a citizen from the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) entering the country as a tourist -- which, in the case of Brazilians and Timorese -- does not require a visa -- and, once in Portuguese territory, apply for a residence permit, among other modifications, according to Público Brasil.

The PSD (Social Democratic Party) governing party has adopted several of Chega's immigration reforms in its legislative proposals. With the support of the "Portugal for the Portuguese" Chega, the government is guaranteed the votes for final approval of the modified Foreigners' Law, reported Diário de Notícias (July 11).

The next step is for President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to sign the legislation, which has a 20-day deadline for review.

(The modified Foreigners Law was approved by Parliament and sent to President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa for his signature. Instead, the president forwarded several articles of the legislation to the Constitutional Court for review. The Constitutional Court found proposed key changes, such as the limitation of family reunification and judicial appeal, to be unconstitutional, reported Expresso (August 8). On August 8, the president vetoed the bill.)

On July 16, there is also a vote scheduled for the the creation of the National Unit for Foreigners and Borders (UNEF) within the Public Security Police. The national unit would be responsible for controlling the borders and removing illegal immigrants or people whose application for legalization has been rejected by the authorities, according to Público Brasil.

(Parliament approved creation of the police force for immigrants. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa signed the law, reported Público Brasil (July 17).)

In September, the modified Nationality Law is scheduled for a vote in the Assembleia da República. Because parliamentary recess begins on July 17, there was not enough time for entities such as the Portuguese Bar Association and the Superior Council of the Judiciary to be heard on the proposed changes.

The government's proposed change in the Nationality Law requires that, instead of five years of legal residence in Portugal, obtaining Portuguese citizenship would require a residence permit for seven years as Community of Portuguese-Language Countries (CPLP) nationals, according to Público Brasil, and an increase from five to 10 years for European Union nationals and others, according to Expresso (July 9).

Another key proposed change in the Nationality Law demands that immigrants who have obtained citizenship would cease to be Portuguese, if convicted of a serious crime (punishable with a prison sentence of more than five years), within the first ten years after naturalization.

Also, the Nationality Law calls for revocation of naturalization based on descent from Sephardic Jews, reported Expresso (July 9). In the Portuguese Inquisition of the Portuguese Empire between 1536 and 1794, an estimated 40,000 Jews were victims, according to The Marrano Factory: The Portuguese Inquisition and Its New Christians 1536-1765. There were 1,183 executions, 663 executions in effigy and 29,611 who received penances of self-abasement.

As a way of making reparations, a 2013 amendment to Portugal’s Law on Nationality allowed descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews to become citizens without a residence requirement.

Chega Is Anti-Establishment

Chega embodies characteristics of 21st-century far-right groups: nativism, authoritarianism, and populism, according to Foreign Policy (January 26, 2021). Ventura sowed the seeds of his political career by targeting the Roma (Romani), or ciganos, and demonizing the poor, touting the necessity for law and order, and adopting an anti-establishment stance.

However, in Portugal, “anti-establishment sentiment plays a larger role” within the emerging far-right than in many other European countries, where nativist anti-immigrant rhetoric is stronger, said Mariana Mendes, a researcher at Dresden University of Technology. The Portuguese have a higher level of distrust in their democracy than most populations. This discontentment could fuel a unique brand of far-right populism in Portugal that does not rely primarily on anti-immigrant sentiment.

Regret That Few Foreign Residents Vote

Catarina Reis Oliveira, the director of the Observatory for Migration (OM), regrets that hardly any foreigners vote in local elections said in an interview with Expresso (December 18, 2022).

Reis Oliveira, a sociologist, collected and analyzed statistical and administrative data from 48 national and international sources, which resulted in a portrait of the integration of foreigners in Portugal in an annual OM report for 2020.

Catarina Reis Oliveira said: "The weight of the relative importance of who can vote, who can participate politically, has remained around 65 percent. This year, it has risen to 66 percent. However, when we are talking about those registered, this percentage has declined abruptly in recent years, reaching the lowest value in 2020: only 8 percent of foreigners who can vote in Portugal registered for the vote.

"When we analyze the information by nationality, we can get a little closer to some explanation. For example, Brazilians are always among the nationalities with the lowest registration rate, in the order of 5 percent. In a study carried out for the OM, Brazilians explained that, in Brazil, it is mandatory to vote so that for many to arrive in a country where it is not, there is almost a feeling of liberation. In addition, Brazilians would have to give up voting in Brazil, and many do not want to do so.

"Portugal continues to have a very restrictive framework for granting political rights. In the European context, it is one of the most liberal, but it is an area that has more work to do. And with a census rate decreasing dramatically in recent years, it’s worrisome. It reached the lowest level in 2020, a year in which there were local elections."