LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Voters in Portugal return to the polls Sunday for a third general election in three years, as the country’s increasingly fragmented political landscape defies efforts to unite behind policies on pressing national issues such as immigration, housing and the cost of living.
Hopes that the ballot might end the worst spell of political instability in decades for the European Union country of 10.6 million people could be dashed, however. Polls suggest the election is poised to deliver yet another minority government, leaving the Portuguese back where they started.
“What the polls indicate is that there will not be major differences from the last election results,” says Marina Costa Lobo, head researcher at Lisbon University’s Institute of Social Sciences. That outcome could bring another scramble to build political alliances in Parliament, she said.
For the past 50 years two parties have dominated politics in Portugal, with the center-right Social Democrats and the center-left Socialist Party alternating in power. They are likely to come out on top in this ballot, too.
But public frustration with their record in government has fueled the growth of new alternatives in recent years. That has denied the bigger parties enough seats in Parliament to snare a majority needed to ensure they serve a full four-year term.
“I really don’t know who to go for,” said 47-year-old Lisbon resident Patricia Fortes. “I’m fed up with the main parties, but then I feel I don’t know the other parties well enough.”
A center-right minority government headed by the Social Democrats in partnership with the smaller Popular Party lost a confidence vote in parliament in March after less than a year in power, as opposition lawmakers teamed up against it. That triggered an early election, which had been due only in 2028.
Polls have suggested that the partnership, called Democratic Alliance, again has a small lead over the Socialists but likely not enough to secure 116 seats in the 230-seat National Assembly, Portugal’s parliament.
Voting begins at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and ends at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT), when exit polls can be published. Most official results are expected by midnight (2300 GMT).
The confidence vote was triggered by a political storm around potential conflicts of interest in the business dealings of Social Democrat Prime Minister Luis Montenegro’s family law firm. Montenegro has denied any wrongdoing and is standing for reelection.
Corruption scandals have dogged Portuguese politics in recent years. That has helped fuel the rise of Chega (Enough), a hard-right populist party whose leader Andre Ventura says he has “zero tolerance” for misconduct in office.
But Chega, which shot from 12 to 50 seats to come third in last year’s election, has recently fallen foul of its own lawmakers’ alleged wrongdoing.
One of them is suspected of stealing suitcases from the Lisbon airport and selling the contents online, and another allegedly faked the signature of a dead woman. Both resigned.
Chega owes much of its success to its demands for a tighter immigration policy that has resonated with voters.
Portugal has witnessed a steep rise in immigration. In 2018, there were fewer than a half-million legal immigrants in the country, according to government statistics. By early this year, there were more than 1.5 million, many of them Brazilians and Asians working in tourism and farming.
Thousands more are undocumented. The outgoing government announced two weeks before the election it was expelling some 18,000 foreigners living in the country without authorization. Though such a step is routine, the timing drew accusations it was trying to capture votes from Chega.
Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos, who is also standing for prime minister, described the move as a “Trumpification” of Portuguese politics, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s focus on immigration policies.
A housing crisis has also fired debate. House prices and rents have been soaring for the past 10 years, due in part to an influx of white-collar foreigners who have driven up prices.
House prices jumped another 9% last year, the National Statistics Institute, a government body, said. Rents in and around the capital Lisbon, where some 1.5 million people live, last year saw the steepest rise in 30 years, climbing more than 7%, the institute said.
People complain they can’t afford to buy or rent a home where they come from and that they and their children have to move away to buy.
The problem is compounded by Portugal being one of Western Europe’s poorest countries.
The average monthly salary last year was around 1,200 euros ($1,340) before tax, according to the statistics agency. The government-set minimum wage this year is 870 euros ($974) a month before tax.
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Helena Alves in Lisbon contributed.
