Portugal's Prime Minister and the center-right ruling coalition leader Pedro Passos Coelho (R) show his electoral number on a mobile phone before casting his ballot during the general election in Massama, on the outskirts of Lisbon, Portugal Oct. 4, 2015. Portuguese started to cast their ballots on Sunday in the general elections, the first after the country had a clean exit from an international bailout in May last year. (Xinhua/Zhang Liyun)
LISBON, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese started to casting their ballots on Sunday in the general elections, the first after the country had a clean exit from an international bailout in May last year.
The polling stations opened at 8 a.m. local time (0700 GMT) and the preliminary results are expected around 8 p.m.(1900 GMT).
The 9.6 million eligible voters will choose between the center-right ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho and the main opposition Socialist Party headed by Secratary-General Antonio Costa.
The latest average polling survey shows that the coalition has 37.5 percent support while the Socialists have 32.5 percent, which indicates neither side is expected to win an absolute majority in the 230-seat parliament.
Passos Coelho has been implementing harsh austerity measures under a 78-billion-euro (about 87 billion U.S. dollars) bailout program it signed with the troika of international lenders, namely the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, in May 2011 and the country succeeded in a clean exit from the bailout three years later.
The country's economy has seen a slow recovery since 2014 with 1.5 percent growth in the first half of this year and the unemployment rate has dropped from a record 17.7 percent in 2013 to 12.3 percent last July.
