Portugal: President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa confirmed in office

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Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa at the ballot box

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MIGUEL RIOPA / AFP

Media forecasts already saw him clearly ahead, now the result is official: In the presidential election in Portugal, the conservative incumbent Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was re-elected with 61.6 percent after counting 98 percent of the votes.

The news agencies AP and AFP report unanimously.

The socialist candidate Ana Gomes received 12.2 percent, the right-wing populist André Ventura got 11.9 percent.

To avoid a runoff, Rebelo de Sousa only needed more than half of the votes.

The victory of the 72-year-old, who used to be a TV journalist and law professor, was already hinted at in media forecasts.

Politicians called for the election to be postponed

The vote was overshadowed by the dramatic worsening of the corona crisis in the EU country.

Portugal has just been declared a corona high-risk area by Germany.

The number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days was recently around 750. According to the University of Oxford, Portugal has the highest seven-day incidence value worldwide.

The background to the high number of infections is apparently the British corona mutation B 1.1.7.

Because of the pandemic, numerous politicians and other personalities had called for the election to be postponed.

In a survey commissioned by the weekly newspaper »Expresso«, 57 percent were in favor of a move.

There was also fear of an extremely low voter turnout due to the pandemic.

High voter turnout - despite the pandemic

According to initial forecasts, the concern was probably unfounded: between 45 and 50 percent of all eligible voters went to the polls.

This roughly corresponds to the values ​​of the presidential elections in 2011 and 2016.

The voters were only allowed in individually to contain the corona pandemic, and last week there was also an early vote to reduce the rush.

In Lisbon and Porto, however, there were sometimes long queues on Sunday.

Rebelo de Sousa is considered to be close to the people and in the past worked without major conflicts with the left government of Prime Minister António Costa.

So far, for example, there have been hardly any conflicts over the proclamation and design of the Corona state of emergency.

The head of state has a lot of power in Portugal.

The president can both veto laws and dissolve parliament and call new elections.

For Portugal it was the tenth presidential election since the Carnation Revolution of 1974.

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