A clear victory. Conservative Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa won the Portuguese presidential election with more than double the votes of leftist challenger Antonio Sampaio da Novoa. In the end, an overwhelming 52 at 22,89 percent emerged from the ballot count.
"I want to restore national unity - was the first comment of the newly elected -, our country is emerging from a deep economic and social crisis". Rebelo de Sousa said he wanted to be "a free and independent president".
The first to congratulate him for the victory was the former conservative prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho, who had to take a step back after the October elections, making way for the minority government led by the socialist Antonio Costa.
For his part, the new head of the Executive has promised to carry out an economic program in line with EU requests, but he must count on the support in Parliament of the Communists and the Greens, who are very critical of the European budgetary policy as well as NATO.
"Professor Marcelo", a 67-year-old former leader of the centre-right Social Democratic Party, promised before the election to do "everything possible" to ensure the stability of the government. He will assume the new position on March 9th.
