As of Saturday, 19 especially hard-hit municipalities — home to 31,862 voters — have been given permission to delay the vote by one week. But outgoing President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on Friday insisted that postponing the elections nationwide would violate electoral law. Portugal’s national electoral authority has also said the vote will go ahead as planned.
“A state of emergency, weather alerts or overall unfavorable situations are not in themselves a sufficient reason to postpone voting in a town or region,” the authority clarified in a statement.
Moderate left-wing candidate António José Seguro, who won the first round of the election on Jan. 18, this week admitted that low turnout could benefit Ventura, whose Chega party supporters have proven reliable voters in the last few elections. “People keep telling me I’ve already won this race, and that’s not the case,” he said on Friday, adding that his opponent had “many incentives to push for the electoral demobilization of the Portuguese people.”
Seguro secured 31 percent in last month’s vote in a field of 11 candidate; Ventura came second with 23.5 percent. The relatively close result has produced the first runoff in a presidential election in Portugal in four decades, and has raised the stakes for a final vote in which turnout looks to be crucial.
In order to “avoid waking up to a nightmare,” Seguro called “on the Portuguese people who are able to vote to do so on Sunday,” adding that he “believes in the common sense of the Portuguese who know that the country has to continue.”
Far-right pushback
Seguro has cast Sunday’s election as a milestone in the establishment’s ongoing push to keep the far right from power. His message was taken up by some members of the conservative Liberal Initiative party, who reached across the political spectrum to support Seguro after their candidate, João Cotrim de Figueiredo, took third place on 16 percent in the first-round ballot.