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TV pundit favourite to win Portuguese presidential election TV pundit favourite to win Portuguese presidential election
(about 3 hours later)
Portuguese voters began voting on Sunday to choose their president in an election closely watched in Brussels as the country recovers from a €78bn (£59bn) bailout. A well-known TV political analyst from the centre-right known as “Professor Marcelo” is the strong favourite to become Portugal’s next president in Sunday’s vote.
The post is largely ceremonial, but the president has make-or-break power over the nation’s fragile ruling coalition, and to dissolve parliament in the event of a crisis. Opinion polls suggest Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who has the backing of right wing parties but claims independence, will collect more than 50% of the vote against nine rivals. Although largely a ceremonial figure, the president has the power to dissolve parliament in a crisis.
Since inconclusive elections in October, Portugal’s minority Socialist government has been relying on a alliance with the extreme left to run the country of 10.4 million people. “I voted for professor Marcelo. I have been seeing him on television for years and I know his political beliefs,” Mario Machado, a 72-year-old pensioner, speaking in an affluent Lisbon neighbourhood, told Agence France-Presse.
The overwhelming favourite to be next head of state is the TV pundit Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. The 67-year-old law professor has become a familiar face since becoming a political analyst on TV in the early 2000s. His TV career followed a long-standing interest in politics, having co-founded a weekly newspaper in his 20s and helping to establish the centre-right Social Democratic party.
Known as Professor Marcelo to his fans, he entered the race with a popularity built on decades in the public eye. Rebelo de Sousa would succeed Anibal Cavaco Silva, a conservative who served two consecutive five-year terms and who was reluctant to hand power to the governing leftist coalition he viewed as “incoherent”. Rebelo de Sousa insists he will seek to rule “above the fray”.
“I voted for Professor Marcelo. I have been seeing him on television for years and I know his political beliefs,” said Mario Machado, a 72-year-old pensioner, speaking in a wealthy area of Lisbon. In November, the Socialist leader Antonio Costa, the former mayor of Lisbon, was named prime minister after an inconclusive general election. The appointment came after Costa’s alliance with Communist, Green and Left Bloc parties toppled an 11-day-old conservative minority government in a parliamentary vote - the shortest administration in Portuguese history. The leftist alliance is the first of its kind since Portugal became a democracy after the end of authoritarian rule in 1974.
The 67-year-old law professor has been involved in Portuguese politics and media since his youth, co-founding a weekly newspaper in his 20s and helping to establish the centre-right Social Democratic party. Costa now has to satisfy keep Brussels and his coalition partners. Following the 2008 economic crisis, Portugal accepted a €78bn bailout from European lenders in return for higher taxes, lower budgets and reduced pensions. Costa has promised to implement a moderate programme that upholds EU budget commitments, but his coalition allies oppose austerity as well as Nato membership.
He made his debut as a political analyst on TV in the early 2000s, delivering clever commentary to a quickly growing audience. Rebelo de Sousa, who has the support of former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, says he wants to build bridges between political parties and will not rock the boat. Projected to win in the first round, the favourite has said he will do “everything I can” to ensure the current government’s stability.
“People love Marcelo because he is entertaining,” said his biographer, Vitor Matos. “He is a consensus candidate and a moderate who takes votes both on the left and on the right. But the voters will have to mobilise for him to be elected in the first round,” political analyst Jose Antonio Passos Palmeira told AFP.
His popularity is widely expected to help him break the 50% mark for an outright win in Sunday’s vote. If none of the 10 candidates reaches this threshold, a run-off will be held on 14 February.
The centre-right bloc of the former conservative prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho won the most seats in the October ballot, but lost the absolute majority it had enjoyed since 2011.
The government of the Socialist prime minister, António Costa, has promised to implement a moderate programme that upholds EU budget commitments.
It is forced, however, to count on the support in parliament of a bloc of communists and greens that has not renounced its critical stance towards European budgetary rules and Portugal’s membership of Nato.
Rebelo de Sousa is a long-time conservative who has the backing of rightwing parties, but who claims total independence.
He insists he will not be partisan but seek to rule “above the fray”.
He would succeed Aníbal Cavaco Silva, a conservative who has served two consecutive five-year terms and who had been reluctant to hand power to a leftist coalition he viewed as “incoherent”.