Lisbon - Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates' Socialist Party was Wednesday becoming increasingly hopeful of winning Sunday's elections as President Anibal Cavaco Silva's handling of a spying affair damaged his conservative opponent, media reported. The Socialists are already slightly ahead of the conservative Social Democratic Party (PSD) in polls.
Cavaco Silva is also a conservative, but his handling of spying allegations was seen as potentially helping the Socialists.
Cavaco Silva on Monday sacked his long-time collaborator Fernando Lima, who was believed to have told the daily Publico that the secret service, which is under the authority of Socrates, was spying on the president.
As the spying allegations began to appear increasingly questionable, Socrates said Wednesday that the PSD was basing its election campaign on "conspiracy theories" and "fear."
Campaigning in Tras-os-Montes in the north, Socrates said only the Socialists would be able to form a "stable" government to provide "security" for the Portuguese.
PSD representatives earlier urged Cavaco Silva to explain the background of the spying affair in order not to "interfere" with the election result, since the affair could be "instrumentalized" by the Socialists.
The president has said he will only speak out after the elections.
The elections are pitting Socrates, who is billed as representing a modern and liberal Portugal, against PSD leader Manuela Ferreira Leite, a former finance and education minister, academic and area coordinator at the central bank.
Socrates has faced trade union protests over his reforms such as trimming the public sector and cutting its social benefits.
Despite the government's liberal economic policies, Ferreira Leite accuses it of wasteful spending in infrastructure projects while Portugal struggles to rise out of its economic crisis.
Socrates was deemed unlikely to renew the absolute majority he won in 2005.
Polls indicated that the main winner of the elections could be the far left, with the Left Bloc and communists together taking about 20 per cent of the vote.
That would open the door to an eventual coalition government of the Socialists with far-left parties, though these initially ruled out such an alliance.
