LISBON (Parliament Politics Magazine): On January 30, Portuguese voters who are quarantined due to Covid-19 will be eligible to vote, but they are advised to do so later in the day.
The parliament of the Republican Assembly of Portugal, will elect 230 members to the ballot box later this month.
On Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said that quarantined voters would be allowed to leave confinement on that day, solely, to exercise their voting right.
Authorities are urging COVID-19 positive voters to vote during the polling station’s final hours of operation to avoid interfering with other voters.
“The problem we experienced in the past elections has been amplified since there are now many more persons infected,” stated Interior Minister FranciscaVan Dunem.
Omicron swoops down on the scene.
“The problem we experienced in the past elections has been amplified since there are now many more persons infected,” stated Interior Minister FranciscaVan Dunem.
On Wednesday, Portugal was swept over by Omicron that resulted in new infections, the numbers reaching over 52,500, marking a new pandemic high attributed on the Omicron variant’s spread
From a total of 9.3 million registered voters in Portugal, 600,000 people are under quarantine, two-thirds out of them being potential voters.
Portugal presently ranks 5th in the European Union in terms of new cases reported in the last two weeks, but only 17th in terms of deaths per 100,000 people, thanks to its high vaccination coverage: 82.9% of the country’s 10.3 million people are completely vaccinated.
Authorities have begun early voting, and more than 200,000 people, along with outgoing Prime Minister Antonio Costa, already have registered to vote on Sunday, a week before the official election day.
The election is two years ahead of what was planned, after the president of the country, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, called a sudden election after the minority Socialist government’s 2022 state budget was rejected by the parliament in November.
The state budget is especially critical right now since it determines how billions of euros in European Union pandemic funding will be spent.