Waving the flags of outgoing Prime Minister Antonio Costa’s Socialist Party, a few hundred middle-aged and young socialist activists took advantage of a sunny day, Friday, January 28, to meet in Chiado Square in the city center. of Lisbon. The musical and good-natured atmosphere, however, concealed the concern of the participants in the face of the polls broadcast Thursday evening.
→ ANALYSIS. Portugal at the polls for an uncertain ballot
One ordered by the weekly Express, showed that the Socialist Party (PS) in power since 2015 would obtain 35% of the voting intentions on Sunday, once morest 33% for the Social Democratic Party (PSD) (center right) of the former mayor of Porto, Rui Rio. And the other for the daily Publico, gives the PS in front of the PSD (36% once morest 33%).
A narrowing gap
A gap that has narrowed considerably over the course of the electoral campaign and that leaves the suspense hanging over the outcome of these elections. With two parties which, in any case, will not obtain a majority in Parliament and will have to make alliances.
Behind the PS and the PSD which have ruled Portugal since the advent of democracy in 1974, following the Carnation Revolution, the polls show four formations almost equally, with 5 to 6% of the voting intentions.
On the far right and right, the populists of Chega and the liberals (IL) are both expected to make strong progress, following entering parliament in 2019 with just one MP. On the side of the radical left, the former allies of the Socialist Party – the Left Bloc and the Communist-Green coalition – risk being penalized by their rejection of the draft budget for 2022, which precipitated the calling of this early election. ” The Communist Party, still strong in rural Alentejo and the southern suburbs of Lisbon, has been in decline for several years inNational level “, points out the political scientist Antonio Costa Pinto.
Chega, “a party in tune with the times”
The Prime Minister launched his campaign by castigating “irresponsibility” of these left-wing formations for having caused a political crisis, while the country was preparing to emerge from the health crisis thanks to the arrival of European funds (16.6 billion euros) from the post-Covid recovery plan.
He had then dismissed the hypothesis of a new union of the left but, in the face of less and less favorable polls, he then changed his speech by saying he was ready to discuss with all the parties except the far right, Chega, up sharply in Portugal. A party that has bitten into the conservative electorate of the People’s Party (PP), sensitive to the corruption of political life, to law and order and once morest the presence of migrants, mainly from India, Nepal and Pakistan, labor present in the Alentejo.
« The leader of Chega has more to do with his Spanish cousin, Vox, than with the French far right », continues Antonio Costa Pinto. ” A party in tune with the times “, sighs a journalist from Portuguese television who prefers not to be quoted.
True to his centrist line, the leader of the opposition, Rui Rio, for his part, has always been willing to negotiate with Antonio Costa on terms that would allow whoever wins to form a minority government. without relying on the radical parties.
