With 66% of the vote, former secretary-general of the Socialist Party Antonio José Seguro was elected president of the Republic of Portugal in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday, February 8. He won by a wide margin over the far-right candidate, André Ventura.
The campaign, however, was disrupted by three severe storms that recently struck Portugal, causing 14 deaths and leaving hundreds of thousands without electricity for several days. Footage of ripped-off roofs, uprooted trees and flooded streets dominated television screens.
Seguro’s sweeping victory – with almost three and a half million ballots cast in his favor – allowed him to surpass by just over 50,000 votes the record set in 1991 by Mario Soares, the Socialist Party’s secretary-general. Nevertheless, voter turnout remained low: More than 41% of registered voters living in Portugal did not vote.
Seguro’s result will not prevent a rise in polarization, especially in light of the recent natural disasters. But it is also important to note the impact of an intense electoral cycle, which the presidential vote brought to a close. Since March 2024, five elections have taken place, including two snap legislative elections.
An unprecedented case in Europe
Despite his defeat, Ventura, who had been campaigning almost continuously for two years, was quick to present himself as the new leader of the right. In the previous presidential election in 2021, he had garnered only 490,000 votes; today, that number has risen to 1,700,000. With 60 MPs, his party, Chega (“Enough”), is now the second-largest political group in the Assembly of the Republic after the legislative elections of May 2025.
On the night of the second round, buoyed by his 33% score, Ventura declared: “We will soon govern this country.” The Democratic Alliance (a coalition of the two right-wing parties, the Social Democratic Party [PSD] and the People’s Party), which is currently in power, holds only a slim majority (88 MPs out of 230). Ventura can therefore hope that new snap elections would allow him to come out on top: He is less than 300,000 votes behind the number that enabled Luis Montenegro to remain in power in May 2025.
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