While Seguro and the forces who united around him to keep the far right out of power will be pleased with the result, celebrations will likely be muted. At least 14 people have died in the fierce cyclones that have battered the Iberian nation over the past three weeks. Turnout was high on election day even though more than 100,000 households remain without power and service on public transport networks was interrupted throughout the country.
Who is Seguro?
Seguro has lived out of the limelight for over a decade after having previously rubbed shoulders with titans of Portuguese and European politics. A former member of the European Parliament who went on to serve as right-hand man to then-Prime Minister — and now United Nations Secretary General — António Guterres, Seguro was tapped to head the Socialist Party following José Sócrates’ fall from grace in the midst of the 2011 financial crisis. But his career was cut short after he lost an internal power struggle for control of the party against up-and-coming Lisbon Mayor António Costa in 2014.
Costa would go on to become prime minister in 2015; later, shortly after resigning from office in 2023, he became president of the European Council. Seguro, meanwhile, retired from the political scene until last year, when he reappeared to unveil a long-shot campaign for the presidency. Despite running as independent, in the lead-up to the first-round of voting he consolidated himself as a consensus candidate for the center left, and pulled off a surprise win when electors headed to the polling stations last month.
After it became clear that Seguro would be facing off against Ventura in the runoff, his candidacy received the unexpected backing of conservatives keen to stop the far-right leader from ending up as the country’s head of state. In addition to centrist luminaries like former President and Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva and former European Commissioner for Research and current Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas, the center-left candidate was endorsed by thousands of voters who signed a manifesto issued by self-declared “non-socialist” public figures.
Seguro describes himself as someone who “engages in dialogue, unites and brings people together.” He has also promised to be more “discreet” than outgoing President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, a former law professor and television commentator who was both praised and criticized for being omnipresent during his decade-long tenure as Portugal’s head of state.
Positives for Ventura
Portugal is a semi-presidential republic in which the president serves as the country’s head of state and has the power to appoint the prime minister and dissolve parliament. The president also has the right to veto laws, appoint some members of key state and judicial bodies, and issue pardons, and serves as supreme commander of the country’s armed forces.