This Sunday (18), millions of Portuguese people go to the polls to choose President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s replacement, with a record number of 11 candidates in the election. The large number of candidates makes it unlikely that any of them will get more than 50% of the votes to win in the first round. In this scenario, the two most voted candidates will compete in a second round next month, for the first time in 40 years.
In Portugal, a country with a semi-presidential government model, the president is the head of state and performs more ceremonial functions, it is the prime minister who heads the government and commands the Executive. But, in times of crisis, the president gains more political weight, as he commands the Armed Forces, can dissolve Parliament, dismiss the government and call elections.
Among the favorites, according to recent polls, is André Ventura, leader of the populist Chega party. Other well-positioned candidates come from the two main parties that have alternated in power over the last half century: Luís Marques Mendes, from the Social Democratic Party (center-right), currently in government, and António José Seguro, from the Socialist Party (center-left).
