Sunday’s presidential elections are (thankfully) drawing closer: today and tomorrow see the final days for ‘street campaigns’ that have marked the last two weeks – and a new poll has hit the headlines, this time putting André Ventura (CHEGA) in the lead with 18.6% of the vote, followed by Luís Marques Mendes (PSD/ CDS-PP) with 15.3%.
Only a few days ago, it was António José Seguro (PS) in the lead (the new poll sees him in 4th place with just 12.5%), and Marques Mendes trailing behind the rest of the ‘favourite five’ (Seguro, Ventura, Cotrim de Figueiredo, Gouveia e Melo and himself.)
In fact, the polls are really not helping: they look more like an exercise in throwing the five top names into the air and imagining how they might land.
Certainly, leader writers see no clear indications of how the electorate will vote on Sunday. It is simply understood that no candidate will be an outright winner (with more than 50% of the vote), requiring a second round of voting on Sunday, February 8.
This, as we mentioned in a previous article, will be where the contest finally gets ‘exciting’.
CHEGA candidate André Ventura is ‘convinced’ that he will get into the second round – but a number of polls put him ‘losing’ to whomever he is finally up against.
Commenting on today’s poll, by Intercampus for Correio da Manhã, the paper’s editorial director general, Carlos Rodrigues, highlights the “little pitfalls within all the data”.
The first, he believes, is the notion that Ventura will get into the second round. “High expectations are Ventura’s greatest adversary (…) it will be a clamorous political defeat if he is eliminated on Sunday, and doesn’t reach the decision phase”, Rodrigues considers.
The second “is that Gouveia e Melo doesn’t have great chances”.
Rodrigues believes that reports that the former Naval admiral is ‘washed up’ are “clearly precipitous (…) Gouveia e Melo lives well with silence (…) It will be the vote of the silent majority that Gouveia e Melo picks up” on Sunday, suggests CM’s editorial director general, referring to the former vaccine Czar’s “thoughtful discourse of someone who is used to exercising authority”.
Set against the other candidates who have to a large extent been bad-mouthing each other at high speed, and extolling their own virtues, Sunday’s results cannot come soon enough.
There is, nonetheless, the chance of yet another poll tomorrow…
Intercampus Poll in full:
André Ventura in lead with 18.6% (having scored 18.7% in a December poll and 15.9% in November)
Luís Marques Mendes in 2nd place, with 15.3% (having scored 16.9% in the December poll, and 16.4% in November)
João Cotrim de Figueiredo, 3rd place with 14.3% (scored 13.6% in December, 11.5% in November)
António José Seguro, 4th on 12.5% (having scored 12.5% in December and 11.1% in November)
Henrique Gouveia e Melo, 5th on 12.3% (having scored 11.9% in December and 15.5% in November)
Catarina Martins, 6th with 2.6% (having scored 6.4% in December, 4.3% in November)
Jorge Pinto, 7th with 1.9% (scored 4.3% in December, 1.9% in November)
António Filipe, 8th with 1.7% (scored 3.9% in December, 3.8% in November)
Manuel João Vieira, 9th on 1.2% (scored 0% in both December and November).
Confusingly there are 11 candidates – but no forecasts for the final two (André Pestana and Humberto Correia) – while there will be three other names on the ballot paper on Sunday, none of which cleared the selection process.
Source: Correio da Manhã
