The last letter from an uncertain election

Although the tendency of the numerous studies points to an AD victory, the question is whether this majority will be a “major majority” than a year ago, as has insistently request Luís Montenegro. And it is precisely this minor majority that has been giving hope to the socialists that the final results can still reveal a reversal of the tendency of polls and end up victory, narrowly, to the socialists.
On its own track continues to play André Ventura, animated by studies that do not show a decrease in voting intentions in arrival and that, in some cases they even give growth.

In the smallest parties championship there is a lot at stake. To what extent the left parties will be able to hold on to a cycle of successive elections that have shown a marked wear of communists and blocks, with the same political space as a new player, the free, who bets on becoming the most voted force to the left of the PS. On the right, the liberal initiative makes the difficult way of responsible party, with the capacity for understanding with AD in a post-election scenario.

Who gives greater stability At the entrance to the last week of the campaign, Prime Minister dramatizes the speech around stability. “They will vote and think about what they want for the next day,” is the phrase Montenegro is rehearsing, trying to pass the message that voters should avoid dispersing votes, because the last year has proved that a minority government is unable to perform their duties.

Now that no one has no doubt that « is not no », there is no possible reversal, the leader of AD plays the asset of the useful vote on the right, for those who do not want to wake up on the 19th, « with a government they did not choose, as happened in 2015 ». To achieve the goal, Montenegro turns mainly to the arrival of the arrival, trying not to make a dent in the liberal initiative, because, within the AD, it is increasingly clear that there will have to be a post-election understanding with IL. Even though the two political forces do not get an absolute majority, a hypothesis that seems less likely, the bet is that they can add more deputies than the all -left elected together.

Simultaneously the AD caravan will have to be particularly attentive, this last week of the campaign, to the attacks that arrive on the socialist side. The perception that there may be an Adil after the elections is the perfect argument for the socialists to shake the bogey of radicalism and the attack on the social state. Montenegro knows, because he has heard him during this campaign, that the pensioners have not yet forgotten the Troic cuts and that the process of reconciliation between the elders and the PSD is still an ongoing process. It is for all this that the discourse of reconciliation is expected to be waving with the increases of the last 11 months of governance must be at the center of the speech.

Come there radicalism The polls are worth what they are worth, it is the most beaten response of campaign politicians, but the truth is that the indicators that are reaching the political caravans have a great influence on the state of mind that lives on the road. This is what happened in the first week of the election campaign among the socialists, when they found that poll after poll, AD appeared ahead, helping to convince a defeat.

This is what led the socialist machine to change the strategy and what is expected in these last days is a load in the paints of the dangers that may be to come, especially with an understanding between AD and liberal initiative. Pedro Nuno Santos will bet on the coming days in the speech of the fear of a “radical” government that threatens the social state. It is in the vote of pensioners that the socialist leader bet most, seeking to hold his main electorate with the argument of the vote of confidence.
The Prime Minister’s spinumviva and suitability is a theme that will tend to disappear from Pedro Nuno Santos’s speech, convinced that he can no longer yield votes.

In its favor, the Socialist Party has the oscillations that the polls are giving and that, in some cases give a light growth to the PS. Like AD, the PS also should dramatize the importance of useful vote on the left, which can also allow a victory.

The sky is the limit André Ventura will not deviate from the script set for this campaign, because all indicators point to maintenance, or even party growth.

The speech that “only victory matters” will continue to be used by the arrival leader to convince the disgruntled with the system that such an “opportunity” may even be around the corner. The truth is that Ventura knows that being maintained or climbing your vote will continue to be essential to enable or make any solution of the future unfeasible and this is your strength.

After a first week in which he sought to win votes to the north, where the party has the most electorate penetration problems, the last days will focus south. It was in Alentejo and, especially, in the Algarve that the party grew the most in the 2024 elections and these are fundamental votes for arriving to keep its electoral score.

Until the last day of the Ventura campaign should continue to ask for “an opportunity” to the Portuguese, not because he is convinced of this victory, but because he knows that this ambition enthusiastic his potential voters, many of them coming from abstention. If he can repeat the feat of 2024 elections, with many votes from voters who did not usually go to the polls, Ventura guarantees that victory is possible, not now, but in close elections that may be around the corner. It all depends on Sunday’s results.

Survive the useful vote The liberal initiative on the right and the left free, walk over thin ice this last week of the campaign. These are the two parties that have the highest growth expectation, because they are not radical and because they can be useful to large parties in a post-election scenario.
The big challenge for both of them is to avoid criticism that can make future understandings unfeasible, but at the same time giving everything for everything to prevent your voters from responding to the useful voting appeal that inevitably socialists and AD will do.

Rui Rocha bets on all to show himself as an asset to a government that in recent months was not ambitious enough and has not « made the changes the country needs. » Contrary to the useful vote discourse, the IL leader will insist on the importance of growing the party as the only possibility of securing a stable right -wing government. The fact that all polls give AD victory works in favor of liberals, as people will have less tendency to change their vote, as they consider that victory is guaranteed.

On the free side, Rui Tavares bets on parliamentary scenarios and the sum of deputies after the elections, as the determining factor to decide who will govern. Like what happened in the last elections, the coordinator of Livre will bet on parliamentary arithmetic, devaluing a socialist victory and highlighting the importance of a strong left party that, unlike leftist block and PCP, gives guarantees of a safe solution to a left -wing government, either it was not Rui Tavares the father of the spring even before she was born.