There were no surprises. Portugal today re-elected the charismatic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to hold the presidency for another five years, in unprecedented elections, marked by abstention and imprisonment imposed by Covid, who have hit the country hard with more than 200 daily deaths in the last week.
The predictions about a historical abstention were met, and the figure exceeded 60%, according to the first provisional data, but the predictions of those who indicated a second round were wrong.
With about 90% of the vote counted, Rebelo got 61.2%, a result that strengthens his support among the moderate right and his lead among socialist voters.
The second place is contested vote by vote between the former socialist MEP Ana Gomes and the leader of the extreme right, André Ventura.
The rest of the applicants are under 5%: left Marisa Matías and João Ferreira, liberal Tiago Mayan and independent Vitorino Silva.
More than 9.9 million voters, one and a half million abroad, were called to the polls to elect the head of state amid the third wave of the pandemic.
It was an unprecedented day, with long lines of voters, not so much because of the massive influx of polling stations, but because of the anti-emptiness measures that slowed down the process.
A day also saw a new record number of pandemic victims in the country: 275 deaths and 11,721 infections since Saturday.
A drama that heralds a difficult second term for Rebelo de Sousa.
REBELLIO, MODERATION FOR A CONVULSED STAGE
“Whoever does not want complications in the middle of the storm, choose stability,” analyst Paulo Portas summed up today to explain Rebelo de Sousa’s success at the polls.
At 72, Rebelo strengthens his base on the conservative right and raises the support of socialist voters.
This conservative, charismatic and close-to-citizens politician – a quality that has led to an appreciation envied by much of the Portuguese political class – is aware of the challenge he faces in a country that was beginning to raise its head after rescuing the “troika”. ”And which again faces the specter of the crisis through the coup d’etat of the covid.
He will be an arbitrator willing to intervene, if necessary, as he did in his first term, always within constitutional limits. It is not for nothing that this expert in constitutional law participated as a Member in the drafting of the Portuguese Magna Carta and is well aware of its edges.
Among his powers, he dissolves Parliament, convenes elections and even vetoes laws.
In addition, he did not hesitate to listen to the government of the socialist António Costa from time to time. Their excellent relationship was not without clashes, the most notorious of 2017, after the fires that left a hundred victims and led to the resignation of a minister.
He, too, has not bitten his tongue in recent weeks, in the middle of the election campaign, about the management of the third wave of pandemic that made Portugal the first country in the world in terms of the number of infections per capita.
His victory was applauded by the right and the left, especially by the Socialists, who govern in the minority and who receive his victory as “good news” because it offers “political stability and continuity for a responsible practice of institutional cooperation”.
Values, emphasize the socialists, which “are even more important given the crisis we are going through.”
THE ROLE OF ABSTENTION
An abstention rate of around 60% is undoubtedly striking in any election, but given the image created by the pandemic in a limited country, it shows the extraordinary willingness of Portuguese people to vote.
“The abstention was higher than expected”, although “with the pandemic we have to thank the Portuguese who came to the polls”, admitted Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
The Socialists also acknowledged the citizens’ effort to go to the polls on stage.
An effort that thwarted the predictions of those who advanced an abstention of over 70% – which could initially have benefited more from the far right – and those who bet on a second round, which would have complicated the process due to the limitations imposed of the pandemic.
CHEGA, GROWING UP WITH THE VOTE OF RELEASE
Sometimes losing can be a victory. This is the case of the far right André Ventura, the leader of Chega (Basta), who took a huge step in these elections, going from 1% achieved with the premiere in 2019 to 12% granted by the provisional results.
With a populist message that reproduces the clichés of the European extreme right, Ventura made an unimaginable projection with this election campaign.
The 38-year-old sports commentator managed to take advantage of the dissatisfaction of right-wing voters and the exhaustion of an electorate that suspects a new crisis in order to gain political weight.
He defines himself as “liberal and conservative” and raises tensions in a country dominated by dispute and political consensus.
Disqualification and aggression characterized his campaign. He came to refer to conservative leader Rui Rio as a “right-wing transvestite”, accused Marisa Matias on the left of painting her lips red and forced Rebelo to mark the distances: “We are different rights.”
LEFT, THE GREAT OPEN
Unlike the rise of the far right, the left was the big defeat in these “sui generis” elections. The sum of the votes of the three left-wing candidates barely exceeds 20%.
Former Socialist MEP Ana Gomes – who did not receive official support from the Socialist Party for her candidacy – is fighting for second place with just 12% of the vote. Far below the 37% that the PS obtained in the general elections, although socialism emphasizes the results of both calls cannot be extrapolated.
Gomes’ biggest mistake, admitted today the socialist Fernando Medina, the mayor of Lisbon, is that he did not know how to distance himself from the Bloco de Esquerda candidate, Marisa Matías, or to launch a message capable of convincing the voter in the center.
Moderate centrists and socialists opted for Rebelo de Sousa, while the left mobilized less than the right and voted for Matías and communist João Ferreira.
“Ana Gomes occupied the space of the democratic left”, defend her collaborators.
Gomes and Matías, the two women aspiring to the presidency, were the most attacked by the far-right Ventura during the campaign.
“He took the campaign with courage,” Ana Gomes’ collaborators insisted today.
Judging by the results, the courage was not enough in this presidential election.