Majority expect political stability in Portugal in 2026

Almost half of the people in Portugal anticipate that 2026 will be a year of continuity at the national level, but fear that the international situation will worsen, according to an opinion poll released by ISCTE’s Institute for Social Public Policy (IPPS) on Friday.

The conclusions are from an opinion poll on the expectations of the Portuguese for the coming year at the family, national and international levels, coordinated by Pedro Adão e Silva and Isabel Flores, from IPPS-ISCTE, carried out as part of the “Panorama 2026” report. The survey included responses from 807 respondents and was conducted by GfK Metris.

When asked about political stability in the country, 46% of respondents believe the new year will be the same, 31% think the situation will worsen, 14% view 2026 with optimism and expect improvements, and 9% responded that they did not know.

The scenario is similar for the national economy: the study shows that 42% of Portuguese believe that 2026 will be a year of continuity, 36% believe it will be worse, and 14% believe it will be better.

However, on an economic level, pessimism decreases when Portuguese people are asked about their family situation: 56% believe 2026 will be the same, 16% anticipate improvements, and 25% foresee their financial situation worsening.

Those responsible for this opinion poll point out, however, that “there is no room for optimism”, since the majority (56%) believe that everything will remain as it is in 2026.

Respondents are most pessimistic at the international level, with 40% anticipating a worse year (the same number who predict that everything will remain the same as in 2025) and only 11% expressing optimism.

For those responsible for the study, the majority view that 2026 will not be very different from 2025 is “surprising”, given that this year has been marked by “remarkable political instability”, with a parliamentary dissolution and elections that resulted in a “fragmented parliamentary landscape”, and a “very sensitive geostrategic context, with several events receiving extensive media coverage”.

The researchers point out that “across the board, lower-income respondents are invariably more pessimistic” and people on the left are also more pessimistic than those on the right.

On the other hand, about half of the respondents with an income that allows them to live comfortably are “quite pessimistic about the international situation”. At the same time, the authors stress, “the same is not true when it comes to the national economy (where only 23% say that the New Year may be worse) and even less so when asked about the economic situation of their own household (with only 6% having negative expectations)”.

The survey also shows that young people are the least pessimistic in the various dimensions of the study. For example, regarding the country’s political stability, only 22% of respondents aged 18-24 foresee any deterioration, one in four predict that the economy will worsen, and only 14% are pessimistic about the financial situation of their household.