Duarte wants to use tax breaks to goad the owners of the city’s 20,000 vacant homes to rent them out at affordable prices, but Pizarro argues his own plan to build 5,000 affordable homes on municipal land could be implemented much faster.
Duarte also has a radical proposal to raise the tourist tax to make public transport free for all city residents — but Pizarro’s counterplan to slash the speed limit on Porto’s innermost ring road could prove more controversial.
With neither candidate expected to secure a governing majority, Chega may ultimately determine the winning vision.
Beyond the biggest cities
As the most-voted party in 60 cities in last May’s snap national election, Chega’s candidates are now poised to enjoy similar success in many of those municipalities.
Polls indicate far-right influencer and MP Rita Matias is in a three-way tie to govern Sintra, Portugal’s second-most populous municipality, where housing prices are increasing due to growing demand from displaced Lisbon residents. Chega’s candidates have even greater odds of winning Elvas, a former fortress city on the Spanish border, and semirural communities like Viana do Alentejo and Benavente.
But the far-right party is most focused on the Algarve region, where locals are struggling to balance the country’s lowest average wages with a steadily increasing cost of living due to the presence of foreign tourists and retirees. By promoting the narrative that seasonal migrants are to blame for local woes, Chega has gained traction among southern electors who feel abandoned by the hyper-centralized Portuguese state.
And while the latest polls still suggest conventional parties will stave off Chega’s bid to take Faro, the far right could win in other southern cities and gain enough council seats to make some municipalities virtually ungovernable.
Polls will close on the Portuguese mainland at 8 p.m. GMT, with exit poll projections published an hour later, when voting ends in the Azores archipelago. The country’s electoral system is remarkably efficient, so a final tally is expected before midnight.