Portugal heads to the polls in decisive parliamentary elections, analysts predict a tie
Portugal's socialist prime minister Antonio Costa is facing a high-stakes snap parliamentary election in which the far-right could make a breakthrough.
Polling stations opened at 8 am on Sunday, and exit poll projections will be released by 8 pm.
"We have defeated austerity and stagnation, we were defeating the pandemic and on Sunday we will also defeat this political crisis and return stability to the country," Costa said on Friday, closing his campaign.
The 60-year-old leader, who came to power in 2015, boasts of having "turned the page" on the austerity budget implemented by the right, thanks to the historic alliance he forged with radical left-wing parties, the Left Bloc and the Communist-Green coalition.
But while his minority government also intended to "turn the page on the pandemic" thanks to impressive vaccination rates and the arrival of European funds from the post-coronavirus recovery plan, these parties rejected his draft budget for 2022, leading to the call for early elections.
Portugal’s economy has been falling behind the rest of the 27-nation EU since 2000 when its real annual gross domestic product per capita was €16,230 compared with an EU average of €22,460.
By 2020, Portugal had edged higher to €17,070 while the bloc’s average surged to €26,380.
When the election date was set three months ago, polls gave Costa's Socialist Party, or PS, a 13-point lead over the main opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD).
Meanwhile, this advantage has all but evaporated. In the latest surveys, the PS was credited with 35 or 36 per cent of voting intentions, against 33 per cent for the PSD of the former mayor of Porto, Rui Rio.
Faced with this gap, the pollsters reserved their prediction and declared a "technical tie".
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