With the long-drawn out presidential voting now finally at an end, something very curious happened when it came to the votes of Portuguese emigrés: if the contest had been down to them, Ventura would be sitting in Belém next month, not António José Seguro.
What does this tell us? Why do the Portuguese that choose not to live in this country think so differently from the countrymen and women who have remained?
Certainly, the late voting that took place yesterday in various municipalities and parishes that were too hard hit by bad weather a week earlier to vote with the rest of the country, did not favour Ventura.
In fact he ‘lost votes in all the parishes where polling was delayed’, writes Rádio Renascença today.
Admittedly, abstention was higher than it had been the week before: 58% – largely due to the fact that the final result was already declared: nothing was going change from the arrival of 37,000 extra votes (or, as it turned out, a little less than half that number).
But the overwhelming support for Seguro in Portugal contrasts markedly with results outside.
Data released by the Ministry of Internal Administration shows that André Ventura won 50.81% of votes collected in 107 consulates, as opposed to 49.19% polled by António José Seguro.
Drill down into those figures, and the reality is that emigrés in Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania did favour António José Seguro.
So where are the emigrés who voted for André Ventura?
According to Observador they are in the United States of America… and overall only 9% of Portuguese emigrés actually bothered to vote.
Sources: Rádio Renascença/ Observador
