Moderate Socialist Antonio Jose Seguro came out on top in the first round of Portugal’s presidential election on Sunday, followed by the far-right leader Andre Ventura, and the two will face off in a February 8 runoff. In the five decades since Portugal threw off its fascist dictatorship, a presidential election has only once before – in 1986 – required a runoff, highlighting how fragmented the political landscape has become with the rise of the far right and voter disenchantment with mainstream parties. The presidency is a largely ceremonial role in Portugal but wields some key powers, including in some circumstances to dissolve parliament, to call a snap parliamentary election, and to veto legislation.
With all the votes in Portugal counted, Seguro garnered 31.1%. Ventura was at 23.5%. Joao Cotrim de Figueiredo of the right-wing, pro-business Liberal Initiative party came third among a total of 11 contenders, winning around 16%.
Last May, the anti-establishment, anti-immigration Chega, founded just about seven years ago, became the main opposition party in a parliamentary election, winning 22.8% of the vote. As in much of Europe, the rise of the far right has swayed government policies, particularly on immigration, towards a more restrictive stance. However, all recent opinion polls have shown Ventura, a former sports TV commentator, losing the runoff due to his high rejection rate of more than 60% of voters.
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Analysts often describe Chega as Ventura’s “one-man show”, a view corroborated by the fact that Ventura is running for president after stating on many occasions that he wants to be prime minister. But Ventura sounded combative as he left a Catholic mass he had attended in downtown Lisbon: “Now we need to unite the entire right wing … I will fight day by day, minute by minute, second by second so that there won’t be a Socialist president. We will win,” he said.
“The country has woken up after these 40 years of no runoffs,” he told supporters later. Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said his centre-right Social Democrats, whose candidate Luis Marques Mendes came fifth at 11.3%, would not support any of the runoff contenders. Cotrim de Figueiredo has said he does not want Ventura as president. In a recent note, the Economist Intelligence Unit wrote that a Seguro-Ventura runoff “would be more straightforward given his (Ventura’s) limited appeal beyond his core base”.
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