Portugal's centre-right Social Democrats won the country’s general election, booting out Prime Minister Jose Socrates' Socialists, exit polls showed.
Exit polls by three television stations gave the Social Democrats between 37% and 42.5% of the vote, far ahead of the Socialists who scored between 24.4% and 30%.
The election ends a period of political uncertainty that started with the collapse of the Socialist government in March and led Lisbon to become the third country in the eurozone to seek a bailout after Greece and Ireland.
The Portuguese, who face the highest level of unemployment in their country for three decades, were expected to reject caretaker Prime Minister Socrates because of the dire state of the economy.
Social Democrat leader Pedro Passos Coelho is now expected to form a government together with the rightist CDS party, which won between 10.1% and 14% of the vote, according to the exit polls. With the preliminary results, he should be able to form a strong majority in parliament with the CDS.
Passos Coelho, voting at a polling station in Amadora on the outskirts of Lisbon where reporters far outnumbered voters, said Portugal had to stick to the bailout terms to regain market confidence and return to growth.
A centre-right government would be welcomed by investors, who have lost faith in the country in the past few months, dumping its bonds and sending borrowing rates to euro-era highs.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who is Portuguese and voted in Lisbon, said the election was the most important since the turbulent ballots after the overthrow of the country's fascist dictatorship in April 1974.
A centre-right coalition government should be able quickly to enact reforms and austerity measures included in the bailout, such as sweeping tax rises and deep spending cuts, to reduce Portugal's large deficit and debt.
But the economy is expected to contract 2% both this year and next, presenting the new government with tough challenges as disposable incomes fall and austerity takes its toll.
