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Portuguese president calls for citizens to vote this Sunday

Xinhua, October 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

Portugal's president called for the Portuguese to vote on Sunday and said the elections this year were a "crucial" moment for the country.

"Abstention is not a solution. To abstain from voting is giving up on the present and abdicating the future," Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva said in an official statement on Saturday.

"Those who opt to abstain are shying away from having an active voice and participating in the construction of a more just and developed country," he added.

Cavaco Silva appealed for all the Portuguese to organize activities for Sunday and to include voting among their activities including professional to-do list, family commitments and football matches.

Cavaco Silva said the results would be "decisive" for the country's future.

"Government solutions built aside of Parliament, of electoral results and party forces are not admissible," he said, pointing out that the elections on Sunday came at a "crucial" time for the country.

"We have before us very complex challenges that demand a great deal of responsibility."

After several weeks of election campaigns, the Portuguese are informed about the proposals of diverse political forces, Cavaco Silva said, and voting is a "sign of freedom, an instrument that they (the Portuguese) should not renounce."

He concludes: "And so I call for all the Portuguese to exercise of voting tomorrow."

Election polls have shown a high rate of abstention for the general election, with Pedro Passos Coelho's center-right ruling coalition looking like they will be reelected with a lead over the center-left Socialist Party, though experts say there won't be an absolute majority.

Passos Coelho has been enforcing harsh austerity under a 78-billion-euro (about 87 billion U.S. dollars) bailout program it signed in 2011, with the economy returning to growth last year, giving the Portuguese a certain sense of stability. Endit