Portuguese democracy has registered a notable improvement in what has become its greatest pathology in recent decades, that of rampant abstention. The provisional data from the scrutiny indicate that for the first time since 2005, the threshold of 60% participation in the national territory had been exceeded, not counting the diaspora. This figure of 63% does not, however, mean a cure for the disease of society's massive lack of understanding regarding its electoral processes, but it does mean that the ailment is in remission, as the trend towards a recovery that was already perceived some time ago accelerates. two years.
The persistence of the pathology of excessive electoral absenteeism is clearly observed when comparing Portugal with its most comparable environment, that of Western Europe. In the EU as a whole, there are Eastern countries with participation rates lower than those of Portugal in recent years. years, even below 50%, such as that of Bulgaria. with its 40.6% from a year ago. But the most natural reference for Portugal is that of the former European Union of fifteen members, still with the United Kingdom and before the enlargement to the east.
Taking the latest data from the most relevant election in each country, in the case of the presidential elections in France and the parliamentary elections, such as those yesterday, in Portugal, it is observed that only in Greece was there a participation of less than 60%, that of 53.7 % of June last year. However, it was a repetition, caused by the ungovernable situation, of the May elections, in which 61.8% of the census voted.
The average electoral participation of the states of the former EU fifteen in the last most important call is 72.5%. Belgium, with its traditional mandatory vote, tops the ranking with 90% and Sweden and Denmark are close with 84%. In well-established democracies such as the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, France and Finland, around three-quarters of the electoral body goes to the polls.
In Spain, only 66.6% of the census participated in the general elections in July last year. However, this is very misleading data, flawed by the unusual Spanish way of registering residents abroad, automatically, without them having to ask for it, as is customary internationally. That is why the figure to take into account is that of the Spanish territory, around 70% in both the 2023 and November 2019 elections.
Portugal recently adopted this same model of professional registration abroad. As its diaspora is larger in relation to that of the country, the distortions are even more pronounced than those of the Iberian neighbor. However, in the face of the chaos that the Spanish Ministry of the Interior and the autonomous communities sow on election nights, when comparing the participation from the interior with the total of the previous call, which includes foreigners, in Portugal, as usually happens with its statistics In general, rigor prevails.
In Portuguese parliamentary and presidential elections there are always three official data, the global data, the national data and the foreign data. In 2022, participation in each of these three areas was, respectively, 51.4%, 58% and 11.4%.
Under these conditions, the analysis must focus on the turnout at the polls within Portugal, which was very low starting in 2005, when it was 64.4%, to later fall below 60% and bottom out at 54.5% of the vote. 2019.
Two years ago, surely the result of the specter of the extreme right that the now resigned prime minister, the socialist António Costa, stirred up effectively and at the same time with little sense of historical responsibility, there was a rebound to 58%, and yesterday since the first advance of participation, of the 12 hours, an increase was observed, since this figure, of 25.21%, was the highest since at least 2009. The same happened with 52% of the 16 hours, which was only 2 .5 points below the 2019 rate for the entire day.
The pathology of high abstention has been attenuated in Portugal with the provisional 63%, but it persists. It has a technical part, due to errors in the censuses in which residents abroad appear. But above all, as European barometers reveal, it responds to considerable distrust of politics and social unrest.
