Campaigning wraps up in Portugal snap vote with right ahead
LISBON: Waving colorful flags, hundreds of campaigners took to Lisbon’s streets on Friday ahead of Portugal’s weekend snap election, with polls giving the opposition center-right an edge after eight years of Socialist rule, and huge gains for the far-right.
Support for the Democratic Alliance (AD) has inched up in the final days of the campaign to hit 32.6 percent against the Socialists’ 27.9 percent, according to Radio Renascenca’s poll aggregator. But analysts warned the results of Sunday’s general election remained wide open due to the large number of undecided voters.
Far-right party Chega, led by former television football commentator Andre Ventura, is tipped to get more than double the 7.2 percent it won in the last election in 2022. That scenario would make it a kingmaker in a new parliament and add momentum to Europe’s swing to the populist right. Angela Loureiro, a 51-year-old lawyer, brought her 16-year-old daughter to an AD street rally near a fruit and vegetable market in Lisbon’s upscale Alvalade neighborhood. “I am tired of these incompetent people who have governed us. It is unthinkable that this country has regressed in eight years,” she told AFP as other AD supporters waved orange party flags around her.
The election was called after Socialist leader Antonio Costa, 62, resigned in November following an influence peddling probe that involved a search of his official residence and the arrest of his chief of staff. Costa himself has not been accused of any crime but he decided not to run again. Under Costa, unemployment has dropped, the economy expanded by 2.3 percent last year — one of the fastest rates in the eurozone — and public finances have improved. But surveys indicate that many voters feel Costa’s government squandered the outright majority it won in 2022 by failing to improve unreliable public health services and education, or address a housing crisis that has sparked noisy street protests.
“The positive macroeconomic context is not reflected in the quality of life of the Portuguese because of inflation, low wages or problems with state services,” said political scientist Marina Costa Lobo of Lisbon’s Social Sciences Institute.
The Socialists’ new leader, 46-year-old former infrastructure minister Pedro Nuno Santos, has defended the government’s record even as he acknowledges it could have done better in some areas. Addressing the crowds at a rain-soaked rally in Baixa Chiado, one of Lisbon’s most iconic neighborhoods, he said the Socialist party was a “safe harbor” that would “govern for all Portuguese, unlike our adversaries”.
The AD has vowed to boost growth by cutting taxes, and to improve public education and healthcare. At a final rally at Lisbon’s main bullring, the party’s leader, 51-year-old lawyer Luis Montenegro, said the AD offered a “safe change”.