LISBON: Waving colourful flags, hundreds of campaigners took to Lisbon’s streets on Friday ahead of Portugal’s weekend snap election, with polls giving the opposition centre-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 per cent against the Socialists’ 27.9 per cent, 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 more than double the 7.2 per cent 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 neighbourhood.
“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 per cent 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.
– AFP
