Portugal:Portuguese prime minister José Sócrates said yesterday he would ask parliament to vote to lift a ban on abortion despite a referendum on the issue looking likely to fail due to low voter turnout.
"The law will now be discussed and approved in parliament," Mr Sócrates said in a televised speech. "Our interest is to fight clandestine abortion and we have to produce a law that respects the result of the referendum. The people spoke with a clear voice." Mr Sócrates's socialists have a majority in parliament.
RTP television channel and the Catholic University showed in an exit poll that at least 56 per cent of voters failed to turn out. Of those who did, at least 57 per cent wanted to lift the abortion ban in the traditionally Catholic country.
If the turnout is below 50 per cent the vote will be invalid, as was the case in a similar referendum in 1998, when only 32 per cent of the electorate voted. It rained that day in most parts of the country, discouraging voters.
Opinion polls before yesterday had shown a majority of voters in favour of making abortion legal in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
"Referendums, contrary to normal elections, often deal with complex matters and people that are not politically motivated or informed have difficulty on taking the decision to vote," said Pedro Magalhaes, a pollster at the Catholic University.
Mr Sócrates had campaigned to change a ban he says leads to thousands of clandestine abortions yearly and which he has called "Portugal's most shameful wound".
The campaign had pitted Catholics against young urban liberals who had hoped to put their country on a par with most other European nations where abortion is allowed. If the ban remains, Portugal will continue to stand alongside a small group of European countries - Malta, Ireland and Poland - which ban abortions.
- (Reuters)