The official results show that Conservative President Silva has been elected to a second term with 53% of the votes, and his top opponent, Manuel Alegre, coming with a distant second with 20%.

Cavaco Silva has been supporting the austerity plan submitted by the Socialist government, for supposedly reducing the country's deficit, but the debt scenario is growing and several cuts in workers’ salaries and privileges were already introduced. This year, the government has imposed a 5 percent cut in civil servants' wages, a rise in value-added tax to a maximum 23 percent from 21 percent, and cuts in tax benefits and government spending to reach its budget gap goal of 4.6 percent. Additionally, the number of unemployed in Portugal rose to 10.9 percent from 10.6 percent in the previous three months and economists see no positive panorama of an advance soon.

While the government of Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates will normally face elections in two years, in 2013, Portugal's president has one key power: to dissolve parliament without having to justify the decision.

Voter turnout fell to a record low of 47%, showing, from one side, the lack of enthusiasm of Portuguese citizens with the current government and its austerity measures, and on the other side, opposition parties claimed hundred or even thousands of people were not able to cast their vote because of the problems with the new electronic citizen's card that has replaced the old voter card.