Sreya Kanugula
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa returned to his office after capturing 61.5% vote from the reported 98.5% districts that had voted.
He did so after an election was held in Portugal, despite the devastating surge of the COVID-19 virus that had left their country among one of the worst ones affected and riddled with continuous cases as well as deaths.
The 72-year-old man had been expected to achieve victory as per the predictions made upon the polls and was pictured as the clear front-runner.
What was unexpected was the brilliant development of the recent entry André Ventura, a right-wing leaning populist politician being caught in a close race for the runner-up position with Ana Gomes, a socialist political candidate with both of their polls ending at 12% and there were four more candidates who had run for the position of head of State.
The race had ultimately ended with the re-election of the centre-right and moderate Rebelo de Sousa winning it. He served as the previous leader of the Social Democratic Party of Portugal and would continue his service as president for his second and last term of 5 years.
Among the first tasks to be completed by the re-elected President was going to be a decision to be taken on the approval of a new law regarding euthanasia next month. But the decision lies in the hands of the head of the State and could be blocked or sent to the Constitutional Court for review/vetting.
The turnout for the election had been lesser than 40% which showed a significant decrease in voters in comparison to recently held elections. It also confirmed the fears that some people hadn’t shown due to their apprehension over the possibility of being infected by the COVID-19 virus.
Several political leaders had stated when the infection rate had begun to grow, that there had been no time left to make any changes to Portugal’s constitution to allow for the postponement of the election.
Among the new day-to-day infection rates that were being recorded, Portugal showed the highest rates as well as the greatest number of deaths per 100,000 people in a population and President de Sousa had closely worked with the minority socialist opposition to support the country during the pandemic.
When the lockdown had been in place, the election campaign had not consisted of any flag-waving processions but several restrictions on walking around had been lifted on the day of polling.
Supervising authorities had been increased early voters were allowed to put their votes in an attempt to reduce crowding on the day of the election.
The voters had been asked to get pens as well as disinfectant solutions to the polling stations. Everyone who had voted wore their masks and maintained physical distance.
The country had clocked in 10.8 million voters as registered and around 1.5 million votes were from those living abroad.
Since the year 1976, every President of this European country had returned to their office for a second run. But there had never been a female president or a president from an ethnic minority who had governed the country till date.