Rebelo de Sousa wins Portugal presidential vote
Center-right candidate Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa won Portugal's presidential election on Sunday, an outcome that may help maintain political balance after a swing to the left in October's parliamentary ballot.
In his victory speech, Social Democrat Rebelo de Sousa, 67, said he will work to promote consensus and repair divisions created in the aftermath of the previous election when the left ousted a center-right administration that imposed tough austerity from 2011 to 2014 under an international bailout.
"This election ends a very long election process ... that unnerved the country and divided a society already hurt by years of crisis. It is time to turn the page and detraumatize, start an economic, social and political pacification," said Rebelo de Sousa, who teaches at the Lisbon University's Law Faculty.
"We have to align social justice with economic growth and financial stability, without compromising the financial solidity for which so many Portuguese sacrificed so much for years," he said referring to Portugal's budget consolidation drive of the past few years that helped it out of an acute debt crisis.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2016/1/24/social-democrat-rebelo-de-sousa-wins-portugal-presidential-vote-outright.html