Name: Portugal presidential election: What to expect | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-02-08T17:15:28.000Z
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Now here in Europe, a much watched vote in Portugal pits a moderate candidate against a hard right politician in the race for president.

Reflexive pronouns

Center left Socialist candidate Antonio Jose Seguro has positioned himself as someone who will cooperate with Portugal's center right minority government.

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He's up against the brash style and right wing politics of Andre Ventura of the Chega party, which translates to enough.

It has grown into a significant force in Portuguese politics.

During a wider European shift to the right.

Seguro was pulling well ahead of Ventura.

So for more on this, I am joined by our correspondent Jan Phillip Schultz in Lisbon.

So what's really at stake in today's presidential runoff?

Well, recent polls show that Socialist Antonio Seguro is clearly in the lead, probably receiving more than 60% of, of the votes.

But of course, it's already a success for the far right candidate Ventura that he has made it to, to the run offs.

This has created an instability in Portugal that the country has not seen since that, since the revolution, the democratic revolution, more than 50 years ago.

But a lot of conservative candidates have said that they want to support the socialist candidate Seguro now because they think he stands for a more moderate, a more cross party approach than the far right right.

But as you see, the far right party, Andrea Ventura's party, they've gained momentum.

Ventura is not very different to populist leaders in this regard.

And a lot of Portuguese have become more critical towards migration in recent years.

And Ventura's slogans like Portuguese first or this is not Bangladesh have resonated with many Portuguese.

So yeah, it's, it's the topic of migration.

And he has, I think it's obvious, also become more radical there.

Just some weeks ago, a court said that he had to remove some street posters because they created or incited hatred towards ethnic minorities.

And you know what, we've been reporting on this for a while now.

Parts of Portugal have been hit by severe weather in recent days.

How could that affect turnout and the outcome of the election?

That's, that's a very interesting question.

Some observers say that it could affect voter turnout and they say that of course the turnout could be much lower.

Some smaller towns in Portugal said that they had to postpone the elections.

Probably around 40,000, 50,000 people are affected.

It will probably not affect the results too much, but

maybe, some observers say it's a little advantage for far right candidate, Ventura, because a lot of conservatives say, okay, we might vote for him, but

And these are the people that might stay at home if the weather is very bad.

But still, most experts say that Ventura doesn't really have a chance to win this election.

What does this election tell us about where Portuguese politics is heading, especially considering that traditional parties are struggling to hold ground?

Yeah, there has been a lot of instability here in Portugal in recent years.

We have seen a parliamentary or a presidential election basically almost every year.

The traditional parties are in a deep crisis.

The Conservative Party or the Democratic alliance, an alliance of parties from the center right to more conservative viewpoints.

They just received around 11% in the last elections.

So this is obviously a sign that the traditional parties are in a deep crisis.

And we have seen a steady rise of the far right here in Portugal in the past year.

DW correspondent Jean Philip Schultz, thank you.

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Portugal presidential election: What to expect | DW News

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