Seguro favoured to beat Ventura in Portuguese presidential runoff

The centre-left Socialist candidate, António José Seguro, is heavily favoured to defeat the far-right populist André Ventura in Portugal’s runoff presidential election on Sunday, in a vote that will test the depth of support for Ventura’s brash style of politics.

Recent opinion polls suggest Seguro will collect twice as many votes as Ventura in the head-to-head between the two top candidates in last month’s first round, when none of the 11 runners captured the more than 50% of the vote required for victory. Polling stations opened at 8am on a mostly overcast day and were due to close 12 hours later, when Portuguese broadcasters were expected to publish exit polls.

Eleven million Portuguese are eligible to vote, and most official results are likely by 11pm (2300 GMT). Seguro, a longstanding Socialist politician, has positioned himself as a moderate who will cooperate with Portugal’s centre-right minority government and has repudiated Ventura’s anti-establishment and anti-immigrant tirades.

Portugal

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