The only face to face that the two politicians who intend to replace Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in the presidency of the Republic of Portugal will have two speeches that were already intuited from the election night in which both celebrated results that left nine other candidates in the gutter. André Ventura, the populist leader chaired by Chega, considers that the support he is receiving from representatives of the right responds to a “cancellation” maneuver. “They are not going to vote for António José Seguro, they are going to vote against me. It shows that the interests of the system gather around him, and they would have done so around anyone else,” he stated in the debate.
The support of , as announced in recent days by the former president of the Republic, the conservative Aníbal Cavaco Silva, or the former Christian Democrat deputy prime minister Paulo Portas, erodes the image of the “leader of the right” that, although they serve to reinforce his discourse that he is a man against the entire system. It also shows that his reading of these elections (socialism versus non-socialism) is having much less impact than that of his opponent, who presents it as a struggle between a conciliatory speech and a hate speech.
Sure, who reiterates at every step that he will be a president for all as opposed to the exclusive model of his adversary, he even winked at pointing out that he respected them because he understood that “many are angry.”
There are many things that differentiate the two candidates who aspire to become the next president of Portugal. The extraordinary process of regularization of immigrants that will take place in Spain is also one of them. In the debate held this Tuesday at the Design Museum in Lisbon, the Spanish Government’s decision served to show its disagreements on immigration policy. While Seguro hinted that he would enact a similar extraordinary regularization if the Portuguese Government proposed it to meet the needs of the economy, Ventura attacked the measure and assured that the dependence on foreign labor in Portugal is due to the low salaries offered to the Portuguese.
The rejection of immigration is one of the flags of Chega, the far-right party founded in 2019. In the debate, its leader assured that he does not intend to “close” the country to all foreigners, but insisted that the need for workers “cannot justify the substitution as happened in other countries like France.” In the last year, the party has agreed with the center-right Government to toughen entry, family reunification and nationalization. Sure, for his part, he shared the regulation of entry but also emphasized social integration.
As much as the content of the proposals, the styles separate them. The populist candidate described his rival on several occasions as someone without ideas and without the ability to propose solutions that as Head of State would be similar to “the queen of England.” António José Seguro, in turn, reproached him for his constant changes of opinion. “That’s why I wanted several debates, one for each opinion,” he ironized.
Both agreed on the diagnosis of some urgent problems for Portuguese society such as the serious shortcomings of public health, but they disagree on the presidential model. André Ventura proposes a more intervening figure, while his opponent defends a more mediating role. The populist candidate also considers a constitutional reform necessary, which the socialist does not contemplate.
Ventura avoided the questions of one of the presenters several times to speak about , one of his international political references, while Seguro advocated for increasing European strategic autonomy and criticized the obligation to contribute 5% of GDP to defense and security as forced by the US president at a NATO meeting.
The debate occurs after the dissemination of several polls in favor of the socialist candidate, who would have more than 60% of the votes compared to 26.5% for his rival. Another survey published a few days ago gave an even greater difference and 70% support for Seguro. The projections point towards a concentration of the vote on the moderate candidate, preferred by both voters on the left and the non-populist right.
In the ranks of Seguro, on the contrary, there are fears that the polls will end up demobilizing their voters on February 8. The socialist’s campaign tries to avoid risks and has refused to hold three debates as proposed by André Ventura, who received 23% of the votes in the first round. Seguro’s victory, with 31% of the votes, was an unexpected result that had not been reflected in previous polls, although they had detected a progressive increase in support for the socialist who was initially presented against the wishes of his own party. These elections, however, were not the race Ventura wanted to run.
The populist leader saw his aspirations to become prime minister reinforced after the 2025 elections, when . The fact of lacking a candidate who would assume the ultra flags led Ventura to also run for the presidential elections that will elect the replacement of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. Going to the second round, ahead of two other candidates from the right, including the one supported by the Government of Luís Montenegro, has already been a political triumph for Ventura who has presented himself since then as the leader of the Portuguese right.
