Did the Covid-19 pandemic weaken populism?

The case of the Portuguese populist party

Abstract

This article analyzes the evolution of the political discourse of the leader of the Portuguese populist party, André Ventura, after his election as a deputy in 2019 and in the years 2020 and 2021, marked by Covid-19 pandemic and presidential elections, in which he obtained a result much higher than that obtained by his party in the previous legislative elections. Based on academic literature on populism and crisis situations (Brubaker, 2021; Seedhouse, 2020) and on essays by academics published in international media (Jenning, 2020; Luciano, 2020), the article reviews the effect of the Covid- 19 in supporting international governments, regardless of their ideology, and analyzes the fact that in Portugal, despite the high levels of support for the socialist government, the populist party Chega, in opposition, was the only one having grown. Using a qualitative methodology based on content analysis of a set of public interventions by the Portuguese populist leader in key moments of his political career, issued in diversified media formats, the article concludes that André Ventura’s speech remained focused on the core themes of its populist program, regardless of the pandemic context. The analysis identifies inconsistency and volatility in his discourse and his positions on the Covid-19 pandemic, with ambiguity and contradiction between initial acceptance and later denial of restrictions and vaccines, adapting its positions to the reactions of its supporters and inorganic groups such as the denialists.