After ten years of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa being elected President of the Republic of Portugal in the first round with a large margin, this year’s presidential elections are shaping up to be particularly unpredictable, with a strong likelihood of proceeding to a second round for only the second time in Portugal’s democratic history, the first occurring in 1986.
With no incumbent in the race, these presidential elections are set to become the most contested ever, surpassing the record set in 2016 when there were ten candidates.
Just over a month before the elections, more than 40 pre-candidates have announced their intentions, although this number is expected to decrease significantly as each candidacy must be validated by the Constitutional Court and requires signatures from at least 7,500 registered voters.
Even if the number of candidates significantly reduces, these elections feature a noteworthy development: seven candidates have received formal support from a parliamentary political party, an unprecedented occurrence in Portuguese democratic history. The previous record was set in 2021, with five candidates receiving party backing.
Among those with party support are Luís Marques Mendes, former president of the PSD, André Ventura, leader of Chega, António José Seguro, former general secretary of PS, João Cotrim Figueiredo, former president of IL, Catarina Martins, former coordinator of BE, António Filipe, former deputy of PCP and Jorge Pires, current deputy of Livre.
The record number of party-supported candidates is largely due to the current presence of ten political forces in the Assembly of the Republic, the highest since 2019. Almost all parties, excluding CDS-PP, PAN, and JPP, have chosen to back one of their past or present members. This marks the first time PS has done so since 2011.
In a context of significant political fragmentation, where Chega became the second-largest parliamentary force in the last legislative elections, disrupting the traditional bipartisanship of Portuguese politics, the multitude of candidates and extensive party involvement renders these elections particularly unpredictable and competitive.
Moreover, polls suggest that one of the frontrunners in the race is an independent candidate with no prior political experience: Henrique Gouveia e Melo, former Chief of Staff of the Navy, who managed the COVID-19 vaccination process in 2021.
Conducting a campaign emphasizing non-partisanship, with the slogan on his election posters being “my party is Portugal,” Gouveia e Melo has garnered support from political figures across various spectrums, including former PSD leader Rui Rio (his national representative), former CDS-PP president Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos, and even former PS Prime Minister José Sócrates.
Thus, forty years after the country first and last went to a second round in a presidential election, such an outcome seems highly likely again, reflecting the increasing polarization of the national political landscape.
