The socialist candidate António José Seguro received the largest number of votes in the Portuguese presidential elections and is now expected to easily defeat the hard right candidate Andre Ventura in a second round and become the next president of Portugal.

Seguro is a moderate candidate that advocated finding concensus on major issues and will likely lead a presidential policy that pushes towards more unity and centrist policy.

Whilst the president is the head of state and policy is normally decided by government, it is a position with some influence and it is generally a welcome news for foreigners in Portugal that a moderate candidate is expected to win.

On the most important topic of the nationality reform, Seguro advocated wider consensus and specifically expressed that the position of the PS party that called for grandfathering people who started the residency process and counting the time to citizenship from the date of application should have been given some weight.

In theory, the ruling minority government can try to rush through the originally planned changes before the new president takes office.

However, there is hope that the anticipated election of a moderate president will encourage the ruling party to come to an agreement with the left wing PS party instead of the hard right Chega party and soften the reform for the benefit of people who already started the process.

We will continue to follow up and keep you posted.