Lisbon, Portugal – Voters in Portugal return to surveys on Sunday for a third general election in three years, since the increasingly fragmented political landscape challenges efforts to join behind policies on pressing national issues such as immigration, housing and the cost of living.
However, the hope that the vote can end the worst spell of political instability in decades for the country of the European Union of 10.6 million people. The surveys suggest that the elections are prepared to deliver to another minority government, leaving the Portuguese back where they began.
“What the surveys indicate is that there will be no important differences with respect to the latest electoral results,” says Marina Costa Lobo, principal researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon. That result could bring another fight to build political alliances in Parliament, he said.
During the last 50 years, two parties have dominated politics in Portugal, with the social democrats of the right -wing center and the Socialist Party of the left center that alternate in power. It is likely that they will also go to the top on this ballot.
But public frustration with its history in government has fed the growth of new alternatives in recent years. That has denied the greatest parties in Parliament to catch the majority necessary to ensure that they meet a complete period of four years.
“I really don’t know who to go,” said Patricia Fortes, 47 -year -old Lisbon resident. “I’m fed up with the main parties, but I feel that I don’t know the other parts well enough.”
A right central minority government headed by the Social Democrats in association with the smallest Popular Party lost a vote of trust In Parliament in March after less than a year in power, as opposition legislators associated against it. That triggered an early election, which had only had in 2028.
The surveys have suggested that the association, called the Democratic Alliance, again has a small advantage over the Socialists, but probably not enough to ensure 116 seats in the National Assembly of 230 seats, the Parliament of Portugal.
The vote begins at 8 am (0700 GMT) and ends at 8 pm (1900 GMT), when output surveys can be published. Most official results are expected at midnight (2300 GMT).
The vote of confidence was triggered by a political storm around possible conflicts of interest in the business business of the Family law firm of the Social Democratic Prime Minister Luis Montenegro. Montenegro has denied any irregularity and is defending re -election.
Corruption scandals have persecuted Portuguese politics in recent years. That has helped feed the emergence of Chega (sufficient), a right -wing populist party whose leader Andre Ventura says he has “zero tolerance” for misconduct in office.
But Chega, who shot 12 to 50 seats for third place in last year’s elections, has recently fallen into a lack of his own legislators.
It is suspected that one of them steals suitcases from the Lisbon airport and sells the online contents, and another supposedly pretended the signing of a dead woman. Both resigned.
Chega owes much of its success to its demands of a stricter immigration policy that has resonated with voters.
Portugal has witnessed a strong increase in immigration. In 2018, there were less than half a million legal immigrants in the country, according to government statistics. Earlier this year, there were more than 1.5 million, many of them Brazilians and Asians who work in tourism and agriculture.
Thousands more are undocumented. The outgoing government announced two weeks before the elections it was expel about 18,000 foreigners Live in the country without authorization. Although such a step is routine, time extracted accusations that I was trying to capture Chega votes.
The socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos, who is also defending the prime minister, described the movement as a “triumph” of Portuguese politics, referring to the approach of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in immigration policies.
TO housing crisis He has also fired the debate. Housing prices and rentals have risen during the last 10 years, due in part to an influx of white collar foreigners who have increased prices.
Housing prices increased another 9% last year, said the National Statistics Institute, a government agency. Rentals in the capital and its surroundings Lisbon, where some 1.5 million people live, last year, last year saw the most steep increase in 30 years, rising more than 7%, the institute said.
People complain that they cannot afford to buy or rent a house where they come and that they and their children have to move to buy.
The problem is aggravated by Portugal as one of the poorest countries in Western Europe.
Last year’s average monthly salary was around 1,200 euros ($ 1,340) before taxes, according to the statistics agency. The minimum wage established by the Government this year is 870 euros ($ 974) per month before taxes.
___
Helena Alves in Lisbon contributed.
