Omicron has Portugal firmly in its grip shortly before the parliamentary elections.

Almost a million Portuguese are in quarantine or in domestic isolation.

But the country with its ten million inhabitants has experience with elections in times of a pandemic.

A year ago, voters confirmed the president in office during the worst corona wave to date.

Hans Christian Roessler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb based in Madrid.

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The infected and isolated are also allowed to vote on Sunday: If possible, they should come to the polling stations in the last hour before they close, when it gets quieter there.

Most people watched the parliamentary election campaign on TV anyway.

A surprising number of Portuguese watched the more than 30 debates.

The TV duel between the socialist Prime Minister António Costa and the conservative opposition leader Rui Rio alone attracted more than three million viewers;

there are only other similarly high ratings in the final of the European Cup.

This interest is surprising because on January 30 there will be elections that nobody really wanted.

They should not normally take place until 2023.

But last fall, Costa's minority government failed with its budget in parliament.

His former partners from the left bloc (BE) and the communists (PCP) refused to follow him.

"One of the most uncertain elections in decades"

“The country needs stability over the next four years so that it can emerge from the pandemic.

The best solution is an absolute majority for the Socialist Party (PS)," Prime Minister Costa said.

But it doesn't look like that at the moment.

From survey to survey, the lead of the PS is crumbling.

In the meantime, it would be a success for Costa's party if it repeated its election victory in October 2019, when the Socialists were the strongest party with a good 36 percent.

Portuguese pollster and political scientist Marina Costa Lobo is therefore cautious.

“This is one of the most uncertain elections in decades.

The gap between the two largest parties is narrowing as Election Day approaches: the risk of further party fragmentation is very real.

The far-right Chega party could even become the third largest force in parliament.”

For a long time, people in Portugal thought they were immune to right-wing populism.

But the lawyer and former football commentator André Ventura managed to establish his Chega party as a new political force in just over two years.

In October he made it into the national parliament with a good one percent of the votes as the only Chega deputy.

In January 2021, he came in third place with almost twelve percent in the presidential election.

Polls are now predicting at least six percent for him - even if the right-liberal "Iniciativa Liberal" is hot on his heels.

Ventura is already asking for ministerial posts

Chega could still come out stronger on Sunday than the left bloc and the communists, who supported Costa until 2019 without forming a formal coalition.

Ventura is already self-confidently demanding ministries if he belongs to a right-wing government coalition after the election.