Portugal’s presidential election campaign began Sunday with 11 candidates competing for the Jan. 18 vote, and the field is broad enough that a runoff is likely, the Associated Press reported.
The official two-week campaign period runs before the Jan. 18 election. With 11 candidates, the AP said it is unlikely that any one candidate will win more than 50% of the vote, which would send the two leading candidates to a runoff ballot on Feb. 8.
Among those expected to lead, the AP said opinion polls show Luís Marques Mendes, from the center-right Social Democratic Party, currently in government, as a frontrunner. The AP also said polls point to António José Seguro, of the center-left Socialist Party, as another leading contender. The report said the two parties have alternated in power for the past 50 years.
The AP said strong challenges are expected from André Ventura, the leader of the populist anti-immigration Chega party. It said Chega’s surge in support last year made it the second largest party in Portugal’s Parliament. The AP also cited Henrique Gouveia e Melo, a retired rear admiral running as an independent, and said he won public acclaim during the pandemic for overseeing the speedy rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.
In Portugal, the AP said the president is largely a figurehead without executive power. The head of state, it said, aims to stand above the political fray by refereeing disputes to defuse tensions. At the same time, the AP noted that the president also has powerful tools, including the ability to veto legislation passed by Parliament—while adding that the veto can be overturned.
The president can also dissolve Parliament and call for snap elections, the AP said. It said after Portugal held its third general election in three years in May, the next head of state is likely to encourage compromises, though the incoming president is expected to face “hot-button matters.”
The AP said one pressing issue is a proposed bill that would introduce limits on who can obtain Portuguese citizenship and under what circumstances citizenship could be stripped. It said the Constitutional Court struck down the proposal last month and returned it to Parliament.
The AP also said a government package of labor reforms—already associated with street protests and a major strike—will come before the president. It added that a law permitting euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, approved by Parliament in 2022 but held up by constitutional objections, could also be placed on the president’s desk.
Almost 11 million people are eligible to vote in the presidential election, the AP reported.