Portuguese voters are due to go to the polls for presidential elections tomorrow, unmoved by a low-key campaign and amid broad expectations that incumbent Jorge Sampaio will easily win a second five-year term.
According to latest polls Sampaio, a member of the ruling Socialist Party, is expected to win 63.5 percent of the vote, compared to 29 percent for right-wing candidate Joaquim Ferreira do Amaral, with other contenders tipped to garner no more than three precent.
Do Amaral enjoys the support of the country's main opposition parties, the Social Democratic party (PSD) and the Popular Party (PP).
An apparent lack of any divisive issues and unprecedented growth rates in the country in recent years have fuelled expectations that voter turnout might reach a historical low Sunday.
The Portuguese weekly Visao said more voters might stay clear of the polls than official figures - predicting a 30 percent abstention rate - might suggest.
It said that 500,000 dead people remain on electoral lists, as do an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Portuguese emigrants, whose interest in the election might have been dimmed by distance.
Portuguese emigrants were allowed to vote for the first time in history this year, after amendments were made to the constitution.
Do Amaral argued that the election of Sampaio, who vowed to transcend ideological divisions to become "the president of all Portuguese", might bolster the left's already solid hold on power, but his remarks have found no echo in the electorate.
Instead there were hopes that the campaign might assume a more gripping edge when the communist candidate, Antonio Abreu, announced he would maintain his candidacy.
In the 1995 presidential election, Abreu pulled out of the race a few days ahead of the election, shifting his support instead to Sampaio who won 53 percent of the vote.
Sampaio was expected to preside over the opening ceremony of Oporto's inauguration as European City of Culture, despite the proclamation of Saturday as a postelectoral national "reflection" day devoid of campaigning.
Sampaio, son a wealthy Lisbon doctor, was involved in the opposition to former dictator Antonio Salazar, leading student protests in 1962. After obtaining his law degree defended political opponents to the Salazar regime in court.
He joined the Socialist Party in 1978, taking its helm in 1989 before abandoning it a year later to take the mayorship of Lisbon, for eight years in the hands of the right.
He cut short his second tenure as Lisbon's mayor to run for the presidency.
AFP