- The ruling Socialist Party (PS) surprisingly won the parliamentary elections in Portugal after counting a large part of the votes.
- She came to almost 42 percent, as the national electoral commission announced after counting a good 95 percent of the votes.
- However, whether the party will achieve an absolute majority of parliamentary seats will only be clear after all votes have been counted.
An absolute majority of parliamentary seats is considered possible after the complicated election procedure from about 41 percent. However, whether the PS has actually won at least 116 of the 230 seats in the “Assembleia da República” will only be known with the provisional official final result.
So far, Prime Minister António Costa, who has been in power since the end of 2015, has not had an absolute majority – so he was dependent on the support of smaller left-wing parties with his minority government.
Costa wants to continue the current policy
“It seems clear that the PS won and came out stronger (from the election), but we have to wait for the final results,” said the 60-year-old in a first reaction. During the election campaign he had promised to continue his previous policies: he wants to continue to promote the economy, reduce social inequalities and at the same time stabilize public finances.
The largest opposition party, the conservative PSD under its top candidate Rui Rio, came to just under 30 percent according to the preliminary results. In the previous election in autumn 2019, the PS won 36.3 percent, the PSD received 27.8 percent. All other parties, including the right-wing populist Chega (It’s enough), stayed in the single digits.