Latest news and stories about political polarisation in Portugal for expats and residents.
Today the campaign is being fought more on social media via smartphone screens than in the streets. Seguro is betting on mobilisation and announces Eanes; Ventura prolongs confrontation and debate to maintain polarisation. Analysis by Liliana Borges.
Throughout history, culture and democracy have gone hand in hand. What is at stake when a culture becomes polarised is the country's future as a thinking society. Opinion by Vivien Merciel Suarez
We've reached the point where a party is conflated with a postcode, and we no longer have political opponents but existential threats. The 'other' is no longer merely someone who thinks differently, but someone who should not exist.
Political scientist António Costa Pinto predicts that the leader of Chega will seek to accentuate the right–left divide in an attempt to reach Belém.
Pacheco de Amorim warns the forthcoming second-round vote may be highly polarised between left and right, likening the situation to the 1986 contest and suggesting a historical repeat.
Catarina Martins accepts the defeat and a result “well below what she had expected.” The former leader of the Left Bloc speaks of a “radicalised right, in reconfiguration and Trumpisation” and says the only “appropriate response is to vote for António José Seguro in the second round, with eyes wide open.” See the full speech here.
The candidate no longer wants merely to make it into the second round; he is trying to turn this campaign into a battle between himself and André Ventura — 'democrats' versus 'extremism'.
