(Adnkronos) – The second round of presidential elections scheduled for Sunday in Portugal will take place in a climate of deep uncertainty, as the country is still being hit by heavy rains and strong winds today. Voter turnout is affected by storm Leonardo, which hit the Iberian Peninsula this week, causing the death of at least one man in Portugal and the displacement of about seven thousand people in Andalusia, where a child is missing. People abandoned their homes during the night fearing the overflow of the Guadalquivir river in Cordoba.
On paper, the moderate socialist Antonio José Seguro is favored, having won the first round of presidential elections with 31.1% of the votes against the leader of the far-right Chega party, André Ventura, a former television sports commentator, who stopped at 23.5%. Ventura stated that the vote should be postponed by a week as it is “a matter of equality among all Portuguese.” The national electoral authority declared that the vote will proceed as planned. “A state of emergency, weather alerts, or generally unfavorable situations are not in themselves sufficient reason to postpone voting in a city or region,” the electoral authority stated.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro stated that his center-right Social Democrats, whose candidate Luis Marques Mendes came in fifth with 11.3% of the votes, will not support any of the candidates in the runoff.
