The writer António Lobo Antunes, one of the most important authors in the Portuguese language, died this Thursday at the age of 83. In 2007 he received the Camões Prize, the most prestigious award for Portuguese literature, and was for years a perennial Nobel Prize candidate. His work displays great psychological depth with original, poetic, and complex prose, offering a portrait of Portuguese society in the last century. The Portuguese government has stated that "his legacy is a chronicle of humanity." Among his most outstanding titles are Exhortation to the crocodiles, The splendor of Portugal and Don't rush into this dark night.

The predictions were confirmed, and the socialist candidate António José Seguro won a resounding victory in the second round of the Portuguese presidential elections. Seguro secured 66.8% of the vote, defeating the far-right candidate. André Ventura, leader of Chega (33.1%). The vote went ahead despite the storm. Marten which is ravaging the country and has forced three municipalities to postpone it until next week. Turnout was 50%, similar to the first round on January 18. Ventura, however, refused to use the bad weather as an excuse: "I'm not looking for excuses, that's the result and I fully accept it: the country needs politicians who take responsibility," he said.

All the polls predict a victory for the Socialist candidate in Sunday's presidential elections in Portugal, but in practice, André Ventura, leader of the Portuguese far right, is poised to turn defeat into his greatest opportunity. momentumIn a way, the president of Chega and leader of the opposition has already won. First, because on January 19th he made history and achieved to force a second round of voting in a presidential election For the first time since 1986. And secondly, because it has brought to the forefront a dichotomy already supported by one in four Portuguese voters – a figure that could rise to a third after Sunday. The debate, also fueled by the media, has centered on whether it is necessary to continue with the democratic system born fifty years ago with the Carnation Revolution or to promote a "fourth republic." It is "the biggest change in the Portuguese political system since April 25th" of 1974, in Ventura's own words.

Moderate socialist António José Seguro has won the presidential election in Portugal, defeating far-right candidate André Ventura, whom he will face in a runoff. With 98.75% of the votes counted, Seguro has garnered 31% of the vote and Ventura 23.65%. However, to govern the country, Seguro will have to secure a second round of voting on February 8th. He is currently the favorite.

Readers of historical fiction tend to think that, besides being entertained, they learn something. Perhaps they do, depending on the quality of the work. Something can be learned. At least about the context in which the fiction unfolds. A great Portuguese novel, "Revolution," by Hugo Gonçalves, recently published by Libros del Asteroide, transports us to a moment in history not so long ago (I remember it very well) that, nevertheless, seems very distant: the so-called Ongoing Revolutionary Process (1974-1975). That is to say, those tumultuous 19 months in which Portugal was on the verge of adopting a Soviet system and teetered on the brink of civil war. Memory is a curious thing. The overthrow of the interminable Portuguese dictatorship of the Estado Novo (1926-1973) by the Army is known as "the Carnation Revolution": a happy, swift event, with very few casualties. But, except for the euphoric initial days, there was neither happiness nor speed. There was violence, and vertigo during the uncertain "revolutionary process underway": "underway" meant that no one had any certainty about where these astonishing events would lead.

Their country is the only one in the world where music is banned. Yet they play like angels. The melody of their violins, guitars, cellos, flutes, drums… fills the conservatory classroom where they rehearse thousands of kilometres from home. Their music is truly captivating. You could listen to them for hours. They are very young boys and girls, between 14 and 22 years old, and all have studied at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), which was previously in Kabul and has now moved to the city of Braga, in northern Portugal. How did they get there? "Our concerts are our way of protesting against the Taliban," they say. Their responsibility is immense: the survival of Afghan music depends on them.

Robert Martínez (Balaguer, 1973) has won the hearts of the Portuguese. When he received the offer to be their national team coach in 2023, he knew he had to move to Lisbon and learn Portuguese. He held his first press conference with a fairly decent Portuguese, but after losing in the quarterfinals of the European Championship in 2024, he felt a certain pressure, as there was talk in Portugal about the possibility of choosing José Mourinho as their national team coach for the 2026 World Cup. With the Nations League in the bag, Martínez can breathe easy. Mourinho will have to wait.

After a club season that seemed to go on forever, the Nations League final was decided in agonizing fashion: on penalties and after extra time. A titanic duel between neighbors that crowned Portugal, the first team to win this tournament twice. During the match, neither Lamine nor Pedri managed to shine, caught in Robert Martínez's tactical web. It was a beautiful and even final, in which collective play ruled over individuality. A Diogo Costa save in Morata served to give Martínez his first major international title, a football vagabond who left Balaguer years ago to seek his fortune far away. First in the United Kingdom, then in Belgium, and now in Portugal, where he managed to clip Spain's wings: Neither Nico nor Lamine made a difference.

The leader of the far-right Portuguese party Chega, André Ventura, continues to gain support and consolidate his strength in the Portuguese political landscape. The key vote of residents abroad has made his party the second most voted force in the Parliament, ahead of the Socialists, and this makes him the new leader of the opposition. In Portugal, there is no regulation establishing the functions of this figure, but in practice, Ventura could become a key interlocutor for the prime minister on matters of state, such as appointments to oversight bodies or foreign policy. (in Catalan enough), the party founded by Ventura in 2019, is not the result of a one-time phenomenon. In last year's legislative elections, the party shook up the Portuguese political landscape: the far-right won 50 of the 230 seats in the Assembly of the Republic. A result that confirmed it was here to stay—a message that Ventura himself repeatedly reiterated during the last election campaign. This time, it won 60 seats (behind the conservative Democratic Alliance, which obtained 88) and surpassed the Socialist Party (PS), which fell to third place with 58 seats.

With the counting of the overseas votes complete, the far-right party Chega has overtaken the Portuguese Parliament and risen to second place, ahead of the Socialists. The two parties were tied at 58 seats after the vote. the legislative elections of May 18, but the votes of those living abroad have given two seats to Chega and another two to the center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition of acting Prime Minister Luís Montenegro. AD thus remains with 88 seats, Chega with 60, and the Socialist Party (PS) maintains its 58.

The avalanche of current global political and economic information continues to accelerate. The Trump presidency in the US is an inexhaustible source of surprises, scares, and setbacks that continue to unsettle us. As if that weren't enough, this Sunday saw three important European elections that had us deeply concerned about the uncertainty of the results and the potential consequences they could have. In all three cases, the role of forces opposed to European integration that could win was on the table. Although there is no second round of the Polish presidential elections, the results of the Romanian presidential and Portuguese parliamentary elections were not disastrous, although the Portuguese elections exceeded negative expectations.

He result of the legislative elections in Portugal leaves two headlines that do not accept nuances: the right is clearly advancing (especially the far right) and the left is suffering a historic setback (especially the Socialist Party). The Portuguese media this Monday spoke of the "Chega earthquake" or "Ventura earthquake" and the "giant wave of the right" to describe the first phenomenon, and of "cataclysm" and "hecatomb" to describe the collapse of the left-wing parties, which have achieved just under 30% of the vote, less than what AD, led by the current Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, retains.

A Sunday election in Romania, Poland, and Portugal produced more or less similar results in these three European Union member states. Namely, in all three cases, the conservative party in each country (Democratic Alliance in Portugal, Civic Coalition in Poland, and the independent candidate of Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan) resisted the onslaught of the respective far right. In Poland, it is still the first round, in which the liberal right candidate—and also mayor, in this case of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski—narrowly edged out the far-right candidate, Karol Nawrocki, pending what may happen in two weeks, in the second round. In Romania, the first round was won by the anti-European candidate, George Simion, leader of the far-right AUR party and admirer of Trump and Viktor Orbán. However, in the second round, and against all odds, Nicolas Dan managed to overtake him, with a result that gave the European Commission pause. Finally, in Portugal, the hitherto conservative prime minister managed to repeat his position with a narrow victory over the Socialists (the day's biggest losers) and the far-right Chega party, which has experienced one of those spectacular growths characteristic of illiberal proposals around the world in the 1920s. Montenegro will have to govern as a minority and will first explore the parliamentary arithmetic that will allow it to govern without depending on Chega's far-right, but it remains ambiguous about what might happen in the future. With different modulations, the parties of liberal democracy and European social democracy are facing similar dilemmas.

Luis Montenegro's conservative coalition (AD) won this Sunday's legislative elections in Portugal. Pending the counting of votes from abroad, the acting prime minister obtained 32.1% of the vote, or 89 seats. Pedro Nuno Santos' Socialists finished in second place by a very narrow margin, with 23.4% of the vote and 58 seats. The big winner of the night was the far-right Chega party, which until the last moment had overtaken the Socialists and ultimately secured 22.56% and the same number of seats. This is the first time the party has surpassed 20% of the vote. Following behind were the Liberal Initiative (5.5%), the environmentalist Livre (4.2%), the Communist Party (3%), the Left Bloc (2%), and the animal rights group Pan (1.36%). A result that confirms the decline of the entire left (which now has 69 seats compared to 92 in the previous term) compared to the 156 seats held by conservative parties.

From Warsaw to Lisbon, via Bucharest, millions of Europeans are called to the polls this Sunday to decide the political direction of Romania, Poland, and Portugal. This Super Sunday The election is taking place amid strong geopolitical, commercial, and economic tensions on the continent, due to the Russian threat and the trade war declared by US President Donald Trump. Brussels remains on tenterhooks, especially to see if Bucharest will shift to the far right.

Catalonia is gradually recovering its electricity. At 6:30 p.m., Civil Protection announced that 41% of the electricity supply to Catalonia had been restored following the blackout. Specifically, as Endesa had informed Civil Protection, power is being restored in the Barcelona metropolitan area, as well as in the Girona district. Power has also begun to return in Barcelonès, Garraf, Alt Penedès, Baix Llobregat, Vallès Occidental, Vallès Oriental, and Maresme regions, after reports of restoration in Osona, Vallès Oriental, and several Girona regions such as Giron were received at 2:30 p.m. This afternoon, Red Eléctrica confirmed that the general outage in Spain and Portugal could take between six and ten hours to resolve.

At the beginning of November 2022, the Portuguese Prosecutor's Office ordered the search of the official residence of the then Prime Minister of Portugal, the socialist António Costa, for an alleged case of corruption (some spoke directly of lawfare) that in the following months would end up completely deflating. But, to everyone's surprise, in a turn that has been interpreted over time as a political move to save his European career, Costa decided to resign and leave on wet paper the absolute majority which he had achieved earlier that same year. The result of this operation was that the Iberian socialist alliance ended and Portugal turned to the right on March 10, 2024.

On Thursday, the Portuguese government ordered an imposed night curfew in 45 municipalities in the country, including the capital, Lisbon, and the second most populous city, Porto. In total, about four million Portuguese (out of a population of about ten million) are affected by the measure, which prohibits leaving home between 11pm and 5am in localities where the cumulative incidence exceeds 120 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for two weeks.

Portuguese hospitals are overwhelmed. Portugal has had three weeks of world records for the number of infections and deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. The figures of the last 24 hours confirm it: records have been broken again with 15,073 new cases registered and 293 deaths, in a country of 10 million inhabitants. The avalanche of covid-19 patients is leaving many hospitals on the verge of collapse, especially because of the lack of sufficient pressure to supply oxygen to everyone who needs it.

Portugal voted in an election for the presidency of the Republic with a much tougher lockdown and worse covid indexes than Catalonia. They did it as they do things in Portugal, without a fuss. These elections have left two worrying figures: the abstention of 60.51% (despite the fact that in 2011 it was 53%, with no covid) and a notable rise of the far right, which has placed Chega!'s candidate in third place with 11.90% of the votes.