LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal's ruling coalition had a slight lead over the main opposition Socialists for the Oct. 4 general election but no side will win a full parliament majority, according to a poll series released on Tuesday.
The prospect of political stalemate that recent polls similarly show could undermine Portugal's recovery from a debt crisis. Analysts say a minority administration would be a bigger risk than a government change as most see broad policy continuity in terms of budget consolidation.
The new survey, which will now be released daily by Intercampus pollster for newspaper Publico and TVI, put the centre-right ruling coalition on 40.1 percent, with the centre-left Socialists trailing behind on 37.1 percent. They were followed by the Communist-Green alliance on 6.3 percent and the Left Bloc on 4 percent support.
The results were similar to another daily poll, by Catolica University, which has the coalition on 40 percent and the Socialists with 35 percent of voting intentions.
The daily tracking poll series are meant more to gauge trends, especially among those now undecided, rather than predict the result. The Intercampus poll showed one in five Portuguese still undecided, while Catolica had one in three.
Portugal's bailout programme, which it completed in May 2014, has not sparked the mass resistance that produced radical anti-bailout parties in Spain and Greece.
The Intercampus poll surveyed 753 people between Sept. 18 and 20. The margin of error was 3.5 percent.
(Reporting By Andrei Khalip, editing by Axel Bugge)
