Portugal picks a centre-right president as counterbalance to centre-left government

A centre-right candidate has scored a resounding victory in Portugal’s presidential election, warning he would use the largely ceremonial post to prevent the centre-left anti-austerity government from worsening the debt-heavy country’s financial health.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, a veteran moderate politician, TV pundit and law professor, collected more than half the votes against nine rivals on Sunday.

With 99 per cent of the votes counted, Rebelo de Sousa won 52 per cent while his nearest rival came in with less than half of that.

Rebelo de Sousa will move into the head of state’s riverside pink palace in Lisbon in March, replacing Anibal Cavaco Silva, who has served the maximum of two five-year terms.

The president has no executive power, and is largely a figurehead, but can be an influential voice and in a crisis has the power to dissolve Parliament if he feels the country is going off track.

A Socialist minority government runs Portugal with the backing of the Communist Party and the radical Left Bloc. The government is trying to pull off a balancing act by ending austerity measures while pledging to continue the financial prudence adopted after Portugal’s 78 billion-euro (US$84 billion) bailout in 2011 amid a eurozone financial crisis.