A cliffhanger in Portugal

I’m glad that I mentioned, in my preview last week of the Portuguese election, that the opinion polls had “badly understated the Socialist vote” on the previous occasion. Because on Sunday it happened again: the Socialists went into the election trailing by about four or five percentage points, with the gap apparently widening. Instead they finished less than a point behind their centre-right rivals, 30.3% to 29.4%, a gap of a bit over 50,000 votes.

That puts the centre-right Democratic Alliance two seats ahead, 79 to 77, out of the 226 seats decided so far. (Official results are here; I have recalculated the percentages to factor out the informals.) But the four seats representing expatriates are still to be decided: most probably they will break two each, but if the Socialists again win three of them, that will put the two sides level at 80-all.

Clearly each side is a long way short of a majority. The far-right Chega, with 18.5% and 48 seats, holds the balance of power; in many countries, the obvious outcome would be that it and the centre-right would come to terms, either for a coalition government or for a commitment to external support. But the leader of the Democratic Alliance, Luís Montenegro, has promised that he will not make any deals with Chega – a fortitude that many other centre-right politicians would do well to emulate.

None of the other parties are big enough to make a difference. The right-liberal Liberal Initiative held its ground with 5.1% and eight seats, and four left-wing parties picked up 13.3% and 14 seats between them, a gain of one seat. Turnout was a very healthy 66.2%, up nearly 15 points on 2022.

Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos had indicated beforehand that he would tolerate a minority centre-right government, at least for a time, but that was probably based on thinking that there would be a significant gap between the two sides. It still seems to be the most likely outcome, but with the Socialists outperforming expectations and the margin only wafer thin, he may feel entitled to demand concessions in return for his support.

Clearly the big gain for the far right (up more than ten points), in a country that emerged from dictatorship only half a century ago, is a matter for concern. But the circumstances of the election, with both sides facing corruption allegations, told in its favor, and it remains a distant third behind the major parties. What’s needed, in Portugal as elsewhere, is for the mainstream forces to hold firm in defence of democracy.

Updates to follow when counting is finalised.

UPDATE, Thursday 21 March 7.50am (Portuguese time): The four seats for expatriates have now been decided. In Europe the far right (with 30.1%) and centre-left (26.6%) won one each, while the two for outside of Europe went to the centre-right (34.1%) and far right (27.2%). For some reason the informal vote in both was huge, 39.1% and 32.9% respectively.

That brings the totals up to Democratic Alliance 80, Socialists 78, Chega 50 and all others 22. Democratic Alliance’s Montenegro has, as expected, been asked to form a government. It will survive until centre-left and far right are willing to combine to unseat it, which may be some time.