The curator Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was re-elected …

The president of Portugal, the conservative Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, was re-elected this Sunday in the first round andn in the midst of a spectacular advance of the coronavirus. The end of the exam gave him a resounding 61 percent of the vote. For her part, the former socialist deputy Ana Gomes won 12.8% of the vote, ahead of the far-right candidate André Ventura, who rose to 11.9%. De Sousa is a 72-year-old former law professor who rose to fame as a political commentator on Portuguese television., and maintains good relations with the socialist government of Prime Minister António Costa.

The abstention rate stood at 61.6%, a new all-time high for presidential elections since the establishment of democratic rule in 1974. The elections took place within the framework of strict containment planned to contain the advance of the coronavirus, which on Saturday caused a new record of infections and deaths. With 636,190 cases and 10,469 deaths due to covid-19, Portugal ranks first in the world in number of infections per number of inhabitants, just behind the British enclave of Gibraltar.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is a conservative leader who made his fame as a political commentator and cultivated the image of a politician close to the people. He can be seen wearing a chin strap on the beach and even shopping during the week. With great popularity since his election five years ago, the current Portuguese head of state coexists without major problems with the socialists of Prime Minister António Costa.

“Work, dedication, independence, stability and proximity,” de Sousa explained at the end of the election campaign. Those were his goals for the first term and they are being repeated now. The leader has pointed out on more than one occasion that he plans to step down after serving a period, but the pandemic has caused him to change his mind.

At 72, the president was one of the first to vote at a school in the town of Celorico de Basto, Braga. From there, he declared that he faced these elections “without nervousness”. “At my age, many elections are lost and won, you get used to everything and you are ready for anything. I prepared speeches for the defeat, for a second round and for the victory“, even admitted the Portuguese president.

In Portugal, the Head of State has no executive power but plays the role of arbiter in the event of a political crisis and can dissolve Parliament to call early legislative elections. The four presidents Portugal had since the return to democracy in 1974 were re-elected in the first round. There was no indication that this trend could change, so the focus was on who would be second.

“When the future is at stake, the weapon that we must use is to vote, it does not matter for whom (to vote) or for which project”, declared André Ventura in a harangue of last minute to increase the participation, after having voted in Lisbon. The election of the founder of the anti-system party “Chega” (“Basta”), who fought for second place to socialist Ana Gomes, confirmed the advance of the far right in a country where this trend was still somewhat exceptional.

During the campaign, Ventura said his intention was “to crush the left”.. But Ventura, an ally of French Marine Le Pen and Italian Matteo Salvini, did no better than Gomes, a 66-year-old career diplomat who campaigned without the support of the Prime Minister and secured a worthy second square.