The right-wing Portuguese Reconquista movement would win 5.2 percent of the national vote if it were to register as a political party, according to independent polling firm Intercampus. Remigration activist Afonso Gonçalves, who founded Reconquista, told Remix News that the poll shows the remigration movement could garner significant support from Portuguese voters who have grown tired mass immigration.
“Despite all the lies, slander, false accusations and tyrannical state persecution, Reconquista and its founder are currently polling at 5.2 percent without even being a registered political party yet. The Portuguese people are tired of feeling like foreigners in their own homeland. We will not be ignored any longer,” Gonçalves told Remix News.
Mass immigration is the number one issue driving the growth of the remigration right across Europe. In Portugal, the demographic change has not only been dramatic but also extremely rapid compared to other Europe countries.
“The foreign population has doubled in the last six or seven years, and in the last 12 years it has tripled, because in 2014, we had around 400,000 legal immigrants, already a few hundred thousand — like 600,000 or 700,000 —naturalized citizens that are from an immigrant background. So, in total, we had just short of 1 million immigrants if you count naturalized citizens. So, it has tripled in 12 years and doubled in six years,” said Gonçalves.
In total, the Reconquista founder said there are 3 million foreigners or people with an immigration background in the country, including 2 million legal immigrants and 900,000 people who already acquired citizenship. On top of that, there are approximately 100,000 illegal immigrants.
The polling data shows, however, that Reconquista has most of its support from young people, a trend seen in other European countries, including Germany and France. However, even among the general population, the favorability rating for Reconquista is at 27 to 28 percent, which means the party has ample runway for growth.
“If you consider the people who have a very positive or positive opinion about us, that is almost one-third among the youth, so 18 to 34, and in the overall population it’s at 27 percent or 28 percent,” he said.
This support may also have to do with Gonçalves’ high-profile social media actions, which have gone viral on numerous social media platforms.
🇵🇹🔴 Portuguese activist @AfonsoJFG was detained by police for protesting against mass immigration.
"Not in our country! Portugal belongs to the Portuguese people!"
Gonçalves was detained by police for an hour and released. He was never charged, but was actively protesting… pic.twitter.com/MkyQv2R8ue
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 18, 2025It is important to note that Gonçalves said his movement is not yet actually a party, however, the poll is serving as a sort of public litmus test to gauge how such a party would perform in a general election in Portugal.
Meanwhile, Gonçalves said his movement has built strong relationships with other parties in Europe.
“We have very strong and friendly relationships with Alternative for Germany. We also have friendly ties with Vox in Spain, Restore Britain in the United Kingdom, so I would say that these are our biggest and strongest connections internationally,” he said.
🇵🇹❕ "The Portuguese never asked to be replaced by hundreds of thousands of invaders who don't share their culture, religion, or way of life."
Portuguese activist @AfonsoJFG was arrested for peacefully protesting this Islamist procession in Almada. pic.twitter.com/NsNobHjXkM
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) July 8, 2025His potential party would mark a major sea change in “business as usual” on the right-wing spectrum of parties that already exist in Portugal, especially in relation to the Chega party. Notably, Reconquista takes a strong stand against immigration from former Portuguese colonies and is opposed to legal immigration.
“We are different because we are formally defending remigration. Chega just defends controlling migration; we defend reverting and inverting the immigration influxes. We defend remigration, and we also criticize migration from our former colonies – so countries like Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Cape Verde, etc. These countries are the highest representatives in terms of immigration to Portugal. Chega doesn’t criticize them because they want to attract their votes,” he said.
Gonçalves noted that immigration from these countries represents major problems, as “they represent the highest per capita levels of criminality, representation amongst people who are jailed, and also the highest absolute numbers of immigrants to Portugal.”
Gonçalves warned that these groups “are also the most heavily politicized, they despise our history, and a lot of them feel a sense of vengeance against our people and form an ethnic bloc of voting that has the potential of turning the Portuguese liberal democracy into a tribalistic, let’s say, Balkanized democracy that doesn’t serve the will of the people, for sure at least not the will of the native people.”
Major challenges still exist for Gonçalves and any potential party. For example, while he has garnered ample attention on social media, that attention has also brought censorship, persecution from the Portuguese state, and an authoritarian debanking blitz. In short, he is arguably the most persecuted political activist in Portugal and among the most persecuted in all of Europe.
“Our movement is censored on YouTube and TikTok. So for example, me, I have lost four YouTube accounts and 16 TikTok accounts, and I’ve never been able to regain access to these accounts. Regarding other types of censorship and persecution, we’re being heavily, tyrannically persecuted by the Portuguese state. I have been debanked; I’ve lost access to all of my Portuguese-based bank accounts, the funds were frozen, and I’m not allowed to open a new bank account. So I’m very heavily censored in terms of banking. I’ve also been deplatformed, we’ve been illegally detained, we’ve had our events illegally disallowed, and we are persecuted by the Portuguese regime in that way,” he said.
Starting a party under such conditions represents a major challenge, however, founding a party could help formalize Gonçalves’ movement and create a venue where he can more powerfully pursue a remigration agenda. After all, it is generally easier to ban, debank, and censor an individual than an entire political party.
With remigration as his core issue, his party will have a sharp wedge issue to peel off voters from other rival parties. Remix News has conducted interviews with Chega officials in the past, including party leader André Ventura. He signaled he is open to some legal immigration to support certain industries.
“I don’t know how it is in all the countries, but in countries like Portugal, Spain, and even France and Italy, countries that I know best, the economy needs some level of immigration for areas like agriculture or tourism, hotels, and restaurants. With massive tourism activity, we need some immigration, but massive illegal immigration or even massive immigration, both legal and illegal, can both bring problems,” Ventura told Remix News at the time.
However, Gonçalves has long argued that it is this type of legal immigration that is contributing to the greatest demographic upheaval in Portugal. While the polling data shows there is a pool of receptive voters, there are also powerful business and lobbying interests involved in tourism, construction, agriculture, and other industries who will actively oppose remigration.
The poll was conducted by the independent pollster Intercampus and commissioned by Reconquista. As Gonçalves noted, it is the “most famous, the most credible” polling agency in the country, but he says they have a tendency to undervalue right-wing parties, which he says could be a sign that support for his party could be even higher than 5.2 percent.
