The Prime Minister of the Portuguese Socialists, Antonio Costa, can hold out hope that he will secure an absolute majority of seats in parliament – for the first time – in the January 30 parliamentary elections, according to a representative poll released on Thursday.
According to a poll conducted by the Catholic University of Lisbon Institute on behalf of the Portuguese media, 39% of those polled said they intend to vote for the Socialist Party (PS) at the end of the month, which if verified at the polls, will secure up to 113 seats in the Portuguese prime minister’s party.
To secure an absolute majority of seats in the Portuguese parliament, any party needs to secure 116 seats (out of 230). The PS recorded a rise of one unit compared to the institute’s previous rolling poll earlier this month.
The main opponent of the Socialists, the conservative Social Democratic Party (PSD) under Hui Chiu, saw its own percentage of voting intentions fall from 32 to 30%. The Left Bloc (BE) and the far-right populist Chega are far behind (6% each).
The poll, conducted on behalf of the Portuguese public radio and television station RTP and the newspaper Público, is generally considered credible by political analysts (1).
Mr Costa has ruled Portugal as head of a minority government since 2015. In previous elections in the autumn of 2019, his party, which is seen as rather democratic than socialist, won 36.3% of the vote and secured 108 seats in the Portuguese Parliament.
In previous years, the PS was supported by left-wing parties. But in the process of approving the draft state budget for 2022, in early November, the left-wing parties and the conservative opposition voted against it. President Marcelo Hembelo de Souza thus called early elections.
The Portuguese left – the Left Bloc, the Communist Party (PCP) and the Greens (PEV) – called on the government to include higher social spending in the 2022 budget, using the billions in the European Union’s support package to overcome the coronavirus. Mr Costa refused, citing the need to continue the austerity policy.
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