The poll of the Catholic University for the Radio Television of Portugal (RTP) gives the victory in the legislative elections of Portugal to the Socialist Party, which could caress the absolute majority, located in the 116 deputies. The projections grant him between 37% and 42% ―they translate into a parliamentary range of between 102 and 116 seats―. If the official count confirms these estimates, the socialist António Costa (Lisbon, 60 years old) could face his third term, although in a more complex scenario than in the previous two due to the advance of the right-wing bloc and the Chega ultras, which could become the third parliamentary force, with support ranging between 5% and 8% (between 7 and 13 deputies). On a personal note, however, it is already a milestone for Costa, who could become the prime minister who has remained in office the longest since the Carnation Revolution if he finally receives the task of forming an Executive from the president of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
Voters have severely punished, according to projections, the minority partners who had formed in 2015 the geringonça, the Bloco de Esquerda (BE) and the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). Both formations voted against the 2022 Budget due to discrepancies with the PS on matters such as the increase in the minimum wage or the reinforcement of the National Health System, and they seem to have been held responsible by the voters. If confirmed, the big bump of the night was carried out by the Bloco, which remained as the third force since 2015, with 19 deputies. In the best result of the RTP poll, it would go back to seven. Nor would the coalition between the communists and the Greens fare much better, which could lose up to half of its current 12 seats.
According to the polls, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (PSD, conservative), Rui Rio, has improved the result of 79 deputies in 2019 (the projections of his range vary between 84 and 94), although the advance would be insufficient for him to change the political cycle in São Bento. These polls were received with great coldness in the hotel where the conservatives are concentrated, who in recent days have even begun to caress about victory. The polls were betting on a great tie between Rio and Costa that the polls seem to have dodged, if the demographic forecasts are finally consolidated. With this result, the scenario of Rio at the head of the party is not entirely reassuring, since it is an advance compared to 2019 but could be below the result obtained by Pedro Passos Coelho in 2015 after all the wear and tear on him by the government of the troika. In any case, Rio will have a less fractious parliamentary group, since it is made up mostly of like-minded people, after the marginalization of many of those who supported his rival in the primaries, Paulo Rangel.
The right-wing bloc has experienced great progress in its most radical wing. André Ventura’s party, Chega, could become the third force with the support of between 5% and 8% of the votes. It is far from the percentages that the far-right leader had anticipated, but in any case it is a notable advance for a formation created in 2019. Its political consolidation ends the Portuguese exceptionality in Europe, where it has been one of the last countries to attend to the growth of a far-right party. The Liberal Initiative also rises notably, which now had only one seat and defends ultra-liberal positions in economics. The only party punished in the right-wing bloc has been the Social Democratic Center (CDS), which from being a government party (it has participated in coalitions with the PSD) would become irrelevant or, in the worst of its scenarios, the disappearance of Parliament.
The Chamber that will come out of the polls shows both a deep polarization and a great pluralism. Nine parties could be represented (the tenth, The Greens, form an electoral coalition with the communists) that had already sat in the Assembly in 2019, although with large shifts in votes.
Costa and Rio had arrived at the polls in a very even situation according to the polls, which seemed unthinkable when Rebelo de Sousa announced in November the call for elections to resolve the political crisis opened by the disagreement between the leftist parties that until then had given parliamentary support for the socialist government. At that time Rio lived very low hours, with the party fractured by the primaries and with little support from its internal apparatus. However, his victory in the primaries gave him a political boost to go into the race with Costa in better shape than expected.
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António Costa came out for the absolute majority and changed his speech when he saw that the polls were unfavorable to him. The RTP poll, however, seems to show that the Portuguese blame their former partners for the political crisis.
The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, will give 24 hours of respite to the political leaders, whom he will begin receiving at the Belém Palace starting Tuesday before announcing who will commission the formation of the Government. The most frequent solution is to appoint the candidate of the party with the most votes.
The fragmentation that the ballot boxes have consolidated frustrates, in principle, the wishes of Rebelo de Sousa to achieve a government that does not depend on parliamentary lurches. This was one of the reasons that led him to dissolve the Assembly of the Republic and call midterm elections. After voting in Celorico de Basto, a small town of 2,500 inhabitants in the north of Portugal, he assured that he did not regret it and that he had dissolved the Assembly with the majority support of the Council of State. “What’s done is done. I trust the voters. No one has to be afraid of the votes of the Portuguese or of democracy”, he pointed out.
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