Center left wins Portugal presidential election first round, exit poll says

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No matter whether or not he makes it to subsequent month’s runoff, Ventura’s means to safe almost 1 / 4 of the ballots Sunday emphasizes how exceptional his Chega celebration’s progress has been in Portugal. In six years the ultranationalist grouping has gone from having only one lawmaker in parliament to turning into the nation’s main opposition celebration, controlling greater than 1 / 4 of seats within the nation’s legislature.

Cotrim de Figueiredo’s efficiency can also be notable. Earlier this week the politician, who leads the Liberal Initiative, a liberal financial celebration, and is vice-president of the Renew Group within the European Parliament, known as an emergency press convention after a former advisor stated she had filed a sexual harassment criticism towards him in 2023. The lawmaker denied the accusations, which he stated had been an instance of “soiled marketing campaign” ways, and appeared to retain the backing of voters.

Portugal is a semi-presidential republic wherein the president serves because the nation’s head of state and has the ability to nominate the prime minister and dissolve parliament.

The president additionally has the proper to veto legal guidelines, ratify worldwide treaties, appoint some members of key state and judicial our bodies, and problem pardons. Furthermore, as supreme commander of the nation’s armed forces, the president wields important affect on Portuguese navy deployments.

Regulation professor Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has dominated the presidency for the previous decade. Regardless of being the son of a minister within the administration of dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, Rebelo de Sousa helped write the nation’s democratic structure and tapped that data to compose exhaustive commentaries on authorities laws. He additionally was famend for his seemingly boundless power and his willingness to take ‘selfies’ with members of the general public.

Though 14 candidates appeared on the ballots to succeed Rebelo de Sousa, three had been disqualified for missing the required variety of signatures to run for the presidency. Along with Seguro, Ventura and Cotrim de Figueiredo, conservative TV commentator Luís Marques Mendes and Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo, a naval officer who oversaw the profitable roll-out of the Covid vaccine in Portugal, had been among the many prime contenders.

Whereas Ventura carried out strongly on Sunday, few imagine he has an actual shot of profitable if he qualifies for the runoff vote. Political specialists anticipate the general public to mobilize to stop him from capturing the presidential palace and to rally spherical Seguro on Feb. 8. That will not matter to Ventura, who stated he has no actual curiosity in being “the president of all Portuguese individuals” and has hinted he was solely working to gauge assist for his eventual candidacy for prime minister.

This 12 months’s presidential election is the sixth main vote held in Portugal since 2024, together with three nationwide elections, a European Parliament vote, and nationwide municipal elections. Remarkably, voter fatigue doesn’t appear to be a big issue: Whereas 60 p.c of voters declined to solid ballots when presidential elections had been final held in 2021, exit polls counsel abstention charges fell to a 20-year low on Sunday, with round 40 p.c of registered voters collaborating.