Portugal’s president was re-elected on Sunday for a second term, but the vote also confirmed the rise of a far-right politician who formed his party less than two years ago.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Portugal’s center-right president, secured a new five-year term after winning about 61 percent of the vote.
Sunday’s election took place in extraordinary circumstances, occurring less than two weeks after the Portuguese government put the country back under blockade orders, when a new wave of coronavirus threatened to dominate hospitals.
Socialist candidate Ana Gomes won about 13 percent of the vote, just ahead of André Ventura, a far-right candidate who won almost 12 percent of the vote, the results showed.
Ventura’s performance made it clear that the extreme right-wing ultranationalist leader emerged as a force in Portugal. His anti-migration campaign and other demands largely reflect those of older far-right politicians like France’s Marine Le Pen.
Ventura, 38, a lawyer by training who gained fame as a football commentator, was the first lawmaker to win a seat in Parliament for his newly formed party, Chega !, which means “enough”. Until that victory, in 2019, Portugal has long stood out in Europe for not having a far-right presence in its legislature.
On Sunday night, Mr. Rebelo de Sousa paid tribute to the victims of the pandemic and thanked voters for having re-elected him. He acknowledged that “this now renewed confidence is anything but a blank check”.
Ventura, celebrating “a historic night”, considered the vote an advance for his party, which he described as “openly anti-system”.
Last year, in Portugal, the Commission for Equality and Against Racial Discrimination fined Mr. Ventura for comments he published on social media, especially against the Roma community. Mr. Ventura campaigned on issues such as imposing stronger prison sentences for sex offenders and reducing the number and salaries of lawmakers, as part of his broader attack on the privileges that the Portuguese elite enjoy.
Mr. Rebelo de Sousa, 72, seemed a strong favorite to be re-elected as president, a secondary function in Portugal to that of the government, which governs the country on a daily basis and is led by Prime Minister António Costa, a Socialist.
The president, however, is more than a ceremonial figure, and has a role in foreign policy and national security as commander of the Armed Forces, as well as the power to dissolve Parliament and veto some legislation.
In the coming days, Mr. Rebelo de Sousa will have to decide whether to approve or block a recent law passed by legislators that allows euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide; the Catholic Church was opposed. The president can also request the revision of the law by the Constitutional Court of Portugal.
Sunday’s turnout was about 39 percent, according to preliminary results, a sign that many registered voters stayed home amid concerns about the new wave of coronavirus. The blockade requires residents to remain indoors, except for special reasons.
Last week, the government also decided to close schools and universities, in addition to closing non-essential stores already in place.
After visiting a hospital last week, Mr. Rebelo de Sousa warned that the increase in infections was creating “great pressure on health structures that we had not seen in March”. This, he warned, could lead to “a much longer blockade” than the one-month period initially set by the government.