site.btaMany Portuguese Do Not Plan on Voting in European Elections

Two days before the start of voting in the European Parliament elections, there are no posters in the centre of the Portuguese capital Lisbon, no party activists handing out leaflets. The only election posters were near the Parliament building.

It is not only the parties that seem indifferent to excessive campaigning. Judging by the face-to-face interviews (not all participants agreed to stand in front of the camera), most people have no intention of voting, while many of those who do, have not given it much serious thought and will rather follow their pre-existing preferences, mostly towards forces on the left spectrum.

Something that is confirmed by the opinion polls - the latest figures had the Socialist Party in the lead with 22% (far less than its previous result in 2019), the right-wing Democratic Alliance in second place with 17%, and the nationalist (but not anti-EU) party CHEGA ("Enough") in third place, with 12%. Everyone else is either undecided or is about to vote for parties that will get 3% or less.

Speaking to BTA, voters who did not give their names said that the priority issues for them are Russian aggression against Ukraine, climate change, immigration, the rise of the far right and the rise of the nationalist right, such as the CHEGA party

Another voter, who did not wish to stand in front of the camera - a political science student, said she would vote with ideology and fairness in mind. By this she was referring to the issues of reparations and restorative justice over the country's colonial past recently raised by the President of Portugal.

Meanwhile, the Expresso newspaper reports that two Portuguese MEPs from the Portuguese Communist Party have been included in a list of 30 "best friends of Russia in the European Parliament". The list was drawn up on the basis of the way they voted when discussing 16 EP resolutions critical of Moscow.

These are candidates number 2 and 3 on the list of the Unitary Democratic Coalition, Sandra Pereira and João Pimenta Lopes. But there are no signs that anyone else is particularly outraged - there are no protests from representatives of either the left or the right.