Marcelo won, Ventura also, and Costa still feels very good

There is an image of this Sunday night that makes Portugal a unique place in the world: a re-elected President of the Republic, alone in his own car scribbling a speech of victory that would make him feel alone in an empty college lobby. The Portuguese liked this desecration of power, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa had 60.7% of the votes and reinforced the 2016 vote, when in recent days there was talk of the hypothesis of a second round – abstention was not as black as feared – and was reconfirmed with distinction and praise. If a great result, as the president / candidate even explained, means that the Portuguese are satisfied with their relationship with the Government, then António Costa can rest.

There is another image of tonight that makes Portugal become, on the contrary, a place like other countries: the electoral explosion of populism with the result of André Ventura’s 11.9%, almost half a million voters. From this Sunday the right will never be the same again and a new chapter of politics in Portugal opens to the sound of this cry: “PSD, listen well: there will be no government in Portugal without Chega!”. On the right, therefore, António Costa can rest and begin to rehearse the speech addressed to the center, that a vote in the PSD is a vote for Chega to enter the arc of power.

On the left, the disaster of Marisa Matias and the Bloco (3.9%), who stayed below the modest result of João Ferreira and PCP (4.3%), leaves both parties in need of time and oxygen before thinking about sinking a budget in the next few years. Here, António Costa can also rest. A left that in this state cannot risk elections will have a very difficult time making a PS government with the extreme right lurking unfeasible, no matter how much it may be spent managing the pandemic.

Ahead of PS, Ana Gomes reached second place ahead of Ventura, but it’s a bad result: half of the votes of Sampaio da Nóvoa in 2016 or Manuel Alegre in 2006. If the socialist left wing is only worth these 12.9% of the electorate and the prime minister is at 37% -39% at the polls, Ana Gomes’ space in the PS is not a flag that Pedro Nuno Santos will get to wave as victory. In fact, the most valid argument he used in his closing speech is realistic: without his candidacy, the far right would have done much better. From an internal point of view, António Costa can also rest.

A systemic disorder in the regime, right

This Sunday the most important presidential elections of the last 35 years were held, since the Soares-Freitas duel, because we must distinguish the results of the effect they will have on the political system in the coming years. The impact of André Ventura’s result (which hardly compared to the legislative ones corresponded to a parliamentary bench of 19 deputies) is even more systemic than the birth of the ‘gadget’ in 2015.

Rui Rio he didn’t seem overly concerned; in fact, he said he wasn’t “Nothing worried” about Chega – and preferred to highlight the bankruptcy of the PCP in Alentejo, behind Marcelo and the extreme right. He insisted on the victory of the center, implying that, as he always said, it is in this space where he will seek votes, now it remains to be explained. How the center is hunted with the door open to the racist and xenophobic extreme right. Or how it is possible to isolate the right by forming a government. The road is narrow.

For the CDS even worse. In the TVI comment, Paulo Portas warned that “For the PSD and more for the CDS” this result by André Ventura “is a serious issue”. And with the growth of Tiago Mayan Gonçalves, from the Liberal Initiative (3.2%), the space for Christian Democrats is narrowing. How long will this leadership last? Adjusted by Liberals and Radicals, what space do Christian Democrats have? The next few months are going to be fertile behind the scenes …

In the left race, the Bloc was crushed, Marisa Matías squandered the political capital she had and lost the position she held in the front lines of the succession. Would it have been better to resign in favor of Ana Gomes, as Daniel Oliveira defends her, for example? The result was expected to be bad, but not so bad and can be read as a strong signal from the electorate regarding leadership on the Budget and the rigid rhetoric of the investment triad in the NHS, labor laws and precariousness.

How BE will correct the course (if at all) is anyone’s guess, but the PCP, despite having a poor result, manages to improve a result for the first time in the last five votes. João Ferreira managed to do slightly better than Edgar Silva in percentage, from 3.9% to 4.3%, but he lost 2,536 votes and had the worst gross vote of the PCP in the presidential elections. Worse than that, it was the humiliation inflicted by Chega no Alentejo that should prompt the party for serious reflection. In any case, it is to be expected, as it has already left the congress, and especially in these circumstances, that the PCP will continue to be the support of the PS in Parliament, it remains to be seen at what price.

On the effects of the election hangs Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who became the most transversal personality of Portuguese politics. Having no viable alternative to the right, after criticizing Ventura that Rui Rio never took risks, he asked for the existence of “a credible and strong government, but also a strong alternative against despair and adventure”. With a victory that is not only tasty because the moment is in mourning, Marcelo faces the most difficult presidential period in which a president has embarked.