Center-rightist Anibal Cavaco Silva (R), Portugal's former prime minister between 1985-1995 goes to vote with his wife at a polling station in Lisbon, capital of Portugal, Jan. 22, 2006.

Anibal Cavaco Silva, a former prime minister, won Portugal's presidential election on Sunday.

The center-rightist Cavaco Silva gained 50.78 percent of the vote with 98 percent of polling stations having returned their results, the country's election commission reported.

The 66-year-old Cavaco Silva, candidate for a coalition of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Popular Party, won a small vote majority just over 50 percent, narrowly avoiding an enforced run-off.

Since the establishment of Portuguese democracy after the 1974 revolution which saw the downfall of a dictatorship, it was the first time a rightist candidate has been elected as the nation's president.

Born in July 1939 in Loule, Cavaco Silva entered the Institute of Economic and Financial Studies in Lisbon before studying in the United Kingdom. He joined the PSD in 1974.

Cavaco Silva became director of research at the Bank of Lisbon in 1977, then Planning and Finance Minister from 1980 to 1981. He served as the prime minister of Portugal from 1985 to 1995, after which he competed in the presidential campaign of 1996, to be defeated by incumbent President Jorge Sampaio.

Cavaco Silva's promises to help solve an economic crisis, revive the stagnant economy and cut unemployment rate which is at an 18-year high, have helped him maintain a strong lead in opinion polls over recent months.

His victory was another setback for Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates, whose party also lost heavily in city elections in October. Socrates has recently exercised austerity measures and tax hikes in an attempt to close the widest budget deficit in the euro zone.

The president's powers are limited, but he still has the authority to veto laws, appoint prime ministers and dissolve parliament, where the Socialists have a majority.

Source: Xinhua