Report by Humayun Kabir from Lisbon, Portugal . Polling stations have opened on Sunday at 8 am and will close at 7 pm in mainland Portugal and an hour later on the Azores archipelago. Results are expected to be announced around midnight. There are nearly 11 million registered voters to elect the 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic.
Although opinion polls suggest a narrow victory for the center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition over the ruling Socialist Party (PS), neither key party is expected to secure a majority.
Meanwhile, the far-right party Chega (Enough) is predicted to make sizeable gains, with surveys showing support increasing from just over 7% to around 15-20%.
The general elections are being held four months after Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa’s sudden resignation amid a corruption investigation.
After Costa’s resignation the ruling PS, now led by Pedro Nuno Santos, could try to replay their old alliance with the Left Bloc and the Communists that allowed them to govern between 2015 and 2019 if the combined left won more than 115 seats.
A potential AD minority government, even backed by the small center-right Liberal Initiative, would likely need Chega votes to pass the law, making it relatively fragile as the nationalist and Islamophobic Chega could topple it at any time.
Costa Pinto said, However, “A PS victory with an absolute right-wing majority in parliament would be the most complicated, most destabilizing situation.