Portugal picks new government with $50B of EU funds on table

Portugal is holding an early election that looks set to produce another vulnerable minority government

LISBON, Portugal -- Portuguese voters went to the polls Sunday in an early election that looked set to produce another vulnerable minority government, just as the country is poised to start spending a huge windfall of European Union funds.

That outcome would leave Portugal back where it started two months ago, when lawmakers rejected the minority Socialist government’s spending bill and the country’s president dissolved parliament.

The center-left Socialists and their main rivals, the center-right Social Democratic Party, were in a tight race, opinion polls suggested.

Those two parties traditionally collect around 70% of the vote and have for decades alternated in power in Western Europe’s poorest country.