Elections in Europe: Trends of Incumbency and the rise of the right
How incumbents are winning back trust amid rising anger
Shared Trends Across Three Countries
On 18th May 2025, three European countries had their citizens go to the polls for various elections. Portugal saw its third parliamentary election in five years, and Poland and Romania saw knife-edge presidential elections. While these elections all yielded different outcomes, there were commonalities between them, and they imply that certain political trends have died while others remain. In particular, these elections all saw victories by incumbent parties or ideologies, suggesting that the trend of incumbents suffering heavy losses, as seen last year, has diminished. However, all three elections saw significant support for right wing, populist candidates, in line with many other elections across the past 2 years. So, what do these three elections tell us about the political trends in Europe and the Western World?
Portugal: Stability Over Scandal and the Rise of Chega
Portugal saw the incumbent, centre-right Social Democratic Party (PSD) win 91 seats, an increase of 9, with an increase of 3% of the vote. This is surprising given the circumstances under which the election was called; incumbent PSD Prime Minister Luís Montenegro has been embroiled in various sleaze scandals. Montenegro has been linked with a mysterious company called Spinumviva, allegedly a real estate company, and has allegedly received tax benefits from demolishing an old building and replacing it with a received tax benefits from demolishing an old building and replacing it with a new one. This posed several ethical issues for Montenegro, and the fact that Spinumviva has been receiving monthly donations of €4500 (approximately £3800) from a casino company had raised alarm bells among many in opposition. Montenegro called a vote of no confidence in his government trying to solidify his own position. However, he lost, and Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa honoured a pledge to call elections in this case. Therefore, it is significant that despite being caught up in scandals, which normally doom governments and parties (see the Fillon Affair in France and Partygate in the UK), the PSD has won with an increased mandate, which could possibly suggest that sleaze no longer has as large an impact as it once did. Perhaps people are willing to live under a scandalous government provided it is stable. However, while this argument suggesting a weakened importance of sleaze seems compelling, it fails to account for the contexts plaguing other parties, such as the Socialist Party (PS). The Socialist Party has traditionally been a dominant force in Portuguese politics since the restoration of democracy in the 1970s, however it has now fallen into third place, behind the PSD and the hard-right Chega (more on them later). This rapid decline can be explained as a result of corruption scandals, which, unlike the PSD, correlate negatively with electoral performance. Former Socialist Prime Minister António Costa has been accused of corruption regarding concessions for two lithium mines in northern Portugal, a project for a green hydrogen production plant in southern Portugal, and a project for a data centre also in southern Portugal. While Costa has been out of power for a year now, ‘Operation Influencer’ as it is called still lingers in the Portuguese press, as many of the projects are ongoing. Furthermore, Costa is currently serving as the President of the European Council, a role normally seen as a promotion from that of Prime Minister, which may have led many Portuguese citizens to further resent the Socialists for failing to effectively punish Costa. The Socialists’ disastrous performance could therefore be seen as a result of them failing to accurately address the concerns of the public about transparency within the party, which has lost them credibility. However, both Costa’s and Montenegro’s scandals were the cause of the big story of the election; the rise of the hard-right party Chega!, now the second largest party in Portugal. The aforementioned scandals of the two traditional parties have fuelled anti-centrist sentiment, and just like the rest of Europe, it has been the right that has capitalised off of these grievances. But it is not surprising that Chega has won these voters, given that the party name translates to ‘Enough!’. Indeed, the rise of a hard-right, socially conservative, anti-immigration populist party brings Portugal into line with other Western nations, which dispels the myth that the spread of right wing populism had not significantly reached the Iberian Peninsula. This rise has also occurred for similar reasons to other European nations; the perception of centre-leaning parties as incompetent, scandalous and out of touch. Therefore, the Portuguese election has confirmed that this rise of hard-right parties is very much continuing in the West, but the fact that the centre-right PSD was able to increase its mandate despite being the incumbent party may give credence to a belief that voting against the incumbent, as seen heavily last year, is on the decline.
Romania: A Contested Election and a Centrist Victory
Similar trends have also been displayed in the Romanian Presidential Election. This election was held after the controversial annulment of the 2024 Romanian presidential election, which was won by Călin Georgescu, a far-right, Russophilic lawyer. That election was cancelled after it was alleged that the Russian government helped organise online campaigns to support Georgescu, although it is important to note that the Constitutional Court did not really provide a reason for the annulment, and it was denounced by Georgescu’s opponent. Nevertheless, the circumstances under which last month’s election were held remained controversial and attracted significant attention, not least from JD Vance. Georgescu was barred from running, so instead the preferred right wing candidate was George Simion, who is noted for his anti-Hungarian rhetoric. Opposition to Simion was initially divided among two candidates, Nicușor Dan, and Crin Antonescu, both pro-Europeans and respectful of the interests towards the Hungarian diaspora within the country. Dan narrowly beat Antonescu to the runoff, with Simion receiving approximately the combined total of Dan and Antonescu in the first round. In the runoff, most opposition parties backed Dan (especially the Hungarian parties), with the notable exception of the Social Democratic Party. In the end, Dan won with approximately 53% of the vote, a surprising result given that the far-right seemed likely to govern Romania just last year. This therefore could indicate that the far-right are not as threatening as they may appear in Europe, as they can’t quite win enough votes to govern; however, the strong performance of Simion (and Georgescu in the previous election) dispels this argument, and suggests that the far-right is here to stay. Similarly to Portugal, though, this election was a win for the incumbent ideology – the former President Klaus Iohannis was a centre-right, traditional conservative. While not exactly comparable, Dan belongs to the centre ground and won the endorsement of Iohannis’ National Liberal Party for the second round, thus further suggesting that incumbency is no longer a death sentence for a political party in an election. Therefore, this Romanian election aligns with many of the trends seen in European elections this year.
Poland: Right-Wing Dominance and Youth Polarisation
Finally, the Polish presidential election also confirmed these trends. The first round, held on 18th May, saw the liberal Mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski up against the hard-right historian Karol Nawrocki, who received backing from the hard-right Law and Justice Party (PiS). This election was predicted to be close as both Trzaskowski’s Civic Platform Party (PO) and the PiS have been successful in recent years; Andrzej Duda has been president for the past ten years with the support of the PiS, however the PO has headed up the Polish legislature since 2023 under Donald Tusk. Indeed, the first round was close, with Trzaskowski narrowly beating Nawrocki 31% to 29%, which comforted Trzaskowski’s campaign. However, this was a mistake, as the main reason for Nawrocki’s second place was the presence of the far-right Confederation Party, who secured nearly 15% of the vote in the first round. Nevertheless, the PO were confident heading into the second round, as they had a poll lead (although it had narrowed significantly since the first round). Indeed, Trzaskowski initially declared victory in the second round however as more votes came in, Nawrocki won 50.9% to 49.1%. Like Portugal and Romania, this Polish election confirmed that the right is here to stay in Europe, and that they can indeed win elections. However, this needs some context as unlike in other European countries, the emergence of the right is not new in Poland; since its founding in 2001 the PiS has won 4 of the 5 presidential elections in Poland, and the PiS has also done well in parliamentary elections in 2005, 2015 and 2019. This therefore confirms the second of the two trends discussed in this article: incumbency. The PiS is more or less an incumbent, mainstream political party in Poland, and while Trzaskowski was able to narrow the gap, ultimately the PiS was not affected by its dominant party status in Poland, again confirming that incumbent parties are no longer doomed in Western elections. Finally this election also displayed another trend that has emerged in recent years: young people turning away from the centre. In the first round, the two most voted-for parties among 18 to 24 year olds were the aforementioned Confederation Party (34.8%) and the left-wing Razem Party (18.7%). The PO only won 13%. This brings Poland into line with other countries such as Germany (where young people tended to vote for the AfD or Die Linke, and nowhere in between). It seems that the pre-COVID predictions that young people would uphold liberal, centrist ideologies is continuing to unravel.
Conclusion: Pro-Incumbent and Pro-Right Wing Politics
In conclusion, while these elections appear distinct and different rom each other, there are many similarities between these three elections. All the elections have confirmed that the hard right is here to stay, and governing centrist parties and politicians, like Montenegro, Dan and Tusk, will have to work hard to weaken their influence to prevent the further erosion of the political centre. Additionally, these three elections have helped finally kill off the political death sentence of anti-incumbency; all three incumbent parties held on, even if in some cases they had lost support. And these elections have shown that young people are abandoning liberal politics. While this was strongest in Poland, it also had an effect in Portugal and Romania. Overall, these elections have shown that Western politics is headed in one clear direction: pro-incumbent, pro-right wing politics.