AFP - The Conservative Anibal Cavaco Silva could be re-elected, according to the polls in the first round Sunday in Portugal's presidency after a campaign moody, suspenseful or private issue despite the economic crisis, due to limited powers of the Head of State.
Concerned about rising unemployment and poverty, submitted since early January their third austerity plan in one year, the Portuguese have little interest marked a ballot which, according to political analysts, the only unknown is abstention which could reach a record level.
Given Mr.Cavaco Silva, an economist with 71 years covered by all of the right and credited 57 to 60% of votes, his main rival, the poet Manuel Alegre, supported by the Socialist Party and the Left Bloc (far left) collected between 20 and 27% of the vote, followed by four other minor candidates.
Already nominated in 2006, Alegre, 74, was then a surprise - and lasting enmities had attracted - by beating, with 20.7% of votes, the official candidate of the Socialist Party, former President Mario Soares (14.3%). Mr.Cavaco Silva, who was Prime Minister ten years (1985-1995), had won the first round with 50.5% of the vote.
"At the final result, there is no uncertainty," said João Marcelino, director of the daily Diario de Noticias, recalling that "in Portugal, past presidents have all been re-elected in the first round."
"The recandidature + + is a kind of walk," he said.
"All that nobody cares," says Carlos, a young 38 year old restaurateur, owner of a "tasca" canteen on the hills of Lisbon.
"People have other concerns, and then, frankly, it is clear that the president is useless," added his wife Catarina, which distributes to customers the latest listings for local residents seeking employment.
In Lisbon, the campaign has remained invisible, no posters or leaflets, the major parties are now back in a very personalized election because of the role of the essentially moral head of state, even if it has the right to dissolve the parliament.
In the interior, the six candidates have stepped up "contacts with people," the markets or at dinner banquet-style supporters.
Dedicating the absence of any substantive discussion, Mr.Cavaco Silva has consistently refused to respond to attacks from his rivals, wrapping himself in his status as head of state who, in his view, the "impossible to meddle in partisan political struggles" or "comment on the statements of political actors. "
Even the "business" of the bank BPN, bound to lucrative financial investments made by Mr Cavaco Silva in the early 2000s, fell like a blow against the silence of the outraged president candidate, having monopolized the media for several days.
And rumors of an imminent international assistance to address the fiscal crisis have, according to commentators, further strengthened the demobilization of voters while Mr.Cavaco Silva has stepped up its criticism of the socialist government, accused of having acted "too late" about the slippage in public finances.
"People know that this is not the president who governs," says political scientist Marina Costa Lobo. This is an important character but he is not the rule that the economic problems. And when they see the Prime Minister to go Brussels announce austerity measures, they understand that the government itself decides little ... and the president even less! ".
