news

In other news there were Presidential elections in portugal last sunday, the most cursed result was avoided but they're still indicative of how the country has and is shifting right after the legislative elections last year. In the end the socialist party candidate won and is the frontrunner to win the 2nd round, which is the first time Portugal has had a second round of a presidential election in 40 years and could also leave us with a center-left president for the first time in 20 years.

I wrote a few months ago how for months the frontrunner was a former "neither left nor right" navy admiral" who was responsible for the covid vaccine rollout, well he crashed and burned, in part because once he started opening his mouth nobody knew what he actually believed, he tried to gather votes from center-left voters who were unsatisfied with the socialist party candidate by talking left and from the right by being a military guy, didn't work, he got 12% and 4th place.

The second biggest loser was a tv pundit of the governing center-right "social democratic party" (PSD), the current president is also a PSD guy and had also been a tv pundit for many years so it was thought that this man had a clear path to the presidency, and he had the backing of the ruling government which won the elections in 2025. Well some scandals around lobbying and attacks from the before mentioned military guy dimished his standing considerably, he went from leading the polls to gaining only 11%, 5th place and more than a million less votes than the party got in the 2025 legislative elections. Proving a theory that in Portugal voters usually pick a president against the rulling party, so when the PSD and the right already have a majority in parliament, the 2 autonomous regions and the most mayorships having the president also would be putting all the eggs in the same basket

(CONTENT WARNING: SA, skip this section if you want) In a despairing outcome, the right-wing liberal (think Millei-esque)** candidate got 16% and 3rd place, winning 600k more votes compared to 2025 and racking up a lot of celebrity endorsements, he ran a social media savvy campaign that relied on being a "relatable cool uncle with good vibes", masking politics that are primarily bout austerity and privatization, he messed up by in one interview saying that if the far-right candidate made it to the second round he wouldn't exclude voting for him, which he later walked back, and also by (CONTENT WARNING: SA) probably sexually harassing a former assistant of the liberal party's parliamentary group (currently assistant in the ruling government minister). She accused him of asking her stuff like "Excelent work the only thing left is opening your legs for me" and "do you like them thicker or longer". A not surprising reappearance of the MeToo movement which never made much headway in Portugal, I say unsurprising because this is a very right-wing liberal party and although culturaly liberal on paper everyone knows a ton of its members are conservative (despite garnering much of the youth vote). It's since been revealed that more women inside the party have complained about sexual harassement. To which the candidate responded by denying, victimizing himself and attacking the media, all this didn't seem to affect his standing with liberal voters, unsurprisingly, for a while people even thought he would make it to the 2nd round.

The far-right hyperleader got 2nd place with 23% and only 100k less votes compared to 2025, revealing now how loyal his voters are. Not much to say, he bangs on about migration, immigrants living only on subsidies (incredibly false) and roma people. Really there weren't any major scandals for him this time around, he just loomed over the election as the one everyone knew would make it to the second round. His party hasn't lost any standing since despite the governing center-right depending on the far-right party for plenty of things they aren't oficially in a coalition (and the government relies on the socialist party sometimes too) so they're permanently in the opposition for people who don't like the government and in support for people who do like the government.

The surprise comeback was the socialist party backed candidate Antonio José Seguro getting first place with 31% and 300k more votes than the center-left socialist party got in the 2025 election, where they got the worst ever result. He is a man of the right of the socialist party who is emblematic of the party's colaboration with the right wing government in 2011-2015 during the Troika period by, according to him, "violently abstaining" from the governments many damaging policies. His campaign started poorly with him refusing to call himself of the left, stating "why do you want to label me?", realizing this meant there was no mainstream left candidate and that the navy admiral was attempting to court socialist party voters who felt orphaned he started talking more left. Started low in the polls but made it up and started campaigning on the "useful vote" against the far-right, "Vota Seguro" (Seguro means "safe", and also "insurance"), which seems to have worked as the left candidates had very poor results in yet another demonstration that the presence of the far-right, fear of it and unwillingness to ever let it formally govern (even when it already informally does) only strengthens the center and empties the left. He is the frontrunner to win in the second round agaisnt the far-right, although all the right-wing candidates (and the admiral) and the center-left PM have refused to endorse him against the far-right (but people from their parties have), the left wing candidates already have. If he wins he'll be the first socialist party candidate to win the presidency in 20 years.

The communist party candidate, whom I voted for, and objectively speaking the most adequate candidate to defend the constitution (which is what the non-executive portuguese president is supposed to do) got only 1.6% and less 90k votes compared to 2025, the worst of any communist party candidate ever got in a presidential election. Not surprising with everything I just said, and on the campaign trail the "useful vote" for Seguro was the biggest challenge, y'know after the whole COMMUNIST thing and also having a taken a much denounced anti-NATO position on the ukraine war and more recently a pro-Maduro position on Venezuela, there's already a ton of factors that discard the communist party in people's eyes for now (anti-EU might be the most significant one), so fear of a second round with 2 right-wing candidates instead of the socialist party candidate didn't do us any favors.

The post-trotskyist demsoc party candidate got 2%, which is around what they got in the 2025 elections where they got reduced to 1 MP, still the worst result for a presidential candidate backed by the party (which got 3rd place in 2016) but it shows that maybe (I have my doubts because their candidate is decently popular on the center-left) they're holding on.

The best result of the night was tha the eurocuck pro-war green party's candidate got LESS THAN 1% and 220k less votes compared to 2025, showing that this party which has made a goal of emptying the portuguese left of anti-imperialism, eu-skepticism and anti-capitalism (politics that voters to the left of the socialist party had to stomach when they voted for the communist party or the demsocs) and promissing to be a loyal junior party to the socialist party, seems like their candidate, who on the final days said he accepted if people voted for Seguro (why even run then bro?), was the biggest victim of the useful vote.

In conclusion nobody, especially on the left, was very excited for these elections, we all knew the right was going to win, even with Seguro being the fronrunner he is emblematic of the socialist party right. Unlike in the last elections it seems like right-wing and centrist voters dispersed their votes and the left aggregated on Seguro "to play it safe". I'm going to be hugging all my comrades, though no one in the party ever gets depressed for too long

But the silver lining in Seguro becoming president is that, besides having a president on the nominal left to push back a bit on this government (he has called on the government to remove the planned labour law "reform" which is encouraging, hope he sticks to it), is that the current center-right president Marcelo, perverted the position by taking a much more active stake in national politics than traditionally presidents ever did, one thing was being on constant travel hugging and kissing people, that's fine. But constantly commentanting on matters, pressuring governments, DISSOLVING 3 GOVERNMENTS (2 of them socialist party governments) and constantly calling "council of state meetings" for stuff that he has no power over like the ukraine war and venezuela became majorly annoying by his 2nd term. And all candidates on the right, though not Seguro, constantly talked about "leadership" and all the powers they would take advantage of, when really the president's job is to for the most part veto shit that goes against the constitution, which they already have mangled from its original content after the revolution, but hopefuly he can stick to doing that and shutting up about it.