In Portugal there is no such thing as a quiet election. In the absence of door-to-door canvassing, which is not the tradition here, political parties make their presence felt through spectacle, colour and, above all, noise.
In the ancient university city of Coimbra on Monday, both the governing Socialists (PS) and opposition Social Democrats (PSD) were in town, the former in somewhat greater numbers. From mid-afternoon on, several hundred PS members, accompanied by three bands, thronged the streets, chanting, dancing, waving party flags and handing out red roses to the citizens. Party cars and buses honked through the streets, disrupting rush-hour traffic; no one seemed unduly put out.
In the evening, some 5,000 supporters crowded on to the Escadas Monumentais steps in the university quarter to hear speeches from PS candidates and the Prime Minister, Mr Antonio Guterres. Mr Guterres does not favour explosive oratory, but his speech - largely on education issues - was warmly received and the rally itself was a triumph of presentation and choreography.
Yet, in spite of the regulation razzmatazz, this is an election which has not quite gripped the Portuguese media or people. For one thing, it has looked too much of a sure thing. Mr Guterres will almost certainly be elected prime minister. It is now also beginning to look, with opinion poll forecasts for the PS in the high 40s, that he will achieve the overall majority he lacked in the outgoing parliament.
Party politics, from whatever quarter, is also finding it impossible to match the emotional appeal for the Portuguese people of the East Timor issue, which is still omnipresent - in newspapers and on television, on banners in town squares and posters in shop windows, in intense conversations in cafes and bars.
None of this is likely to hurt Mr Guterres, to whom much of the credit for the eventual success of Portuguese diplomatic efforts to secure appropriate international intervention in Timor will inevitably accrue.
The Timor crisis has undoubtedly had a unifying effect on Portuguese society, although there are those who are sceptical about the hugely emotional public response. Teresa de Sousa, a senior journalist with the Publico newspaper, remarks on a relative absence of concern some months ago about the suffering of the people of Kosovo.
"Do the Portuguese only care," she asks, "when the victims are Portuguese-speaking, a former colony and Catholic?"
The only dissident voice among the political class, however, seems to be that of the head of the regional government of Madeira, Mr Alberto Joao Jardim, a maverick member of the Social Democrats. His attacks on the government - as allegedly ultimately responsible for Indonesia's massacres - and declarations of hostility to Portuguese expenditure on reconstruction have proven a major embarrassment to his party leader, Mr Jose Manuel Durao Barroso.
With the parties of the centre-right (PSD), and right, Mr Paulo Portas's Popular Party (PP), showing a combined score in the polls a good 10 points behind the PS, and the Communists (CDU) a declining force, Mr Guterres seems to be sailing quietly towards a second term. Mr Barroso, head of a party with strong Catholic credentials, has been reduced to the strange expedient of attacking the leader of the traditionally anticlerical PS for being - too Catholic. The quiet, decent and able Mr Guterres may indeed be a little too holy for some - the Communists dub him "the sacristan" - but as a political card this will certainly not work for the PSD.
With politics off the front page again yesterday following the death of Portugal's greatest singing star, Amalia Rodrigues, the campaign is now all but at an end. It would seem that the Portuguese, a wealthier, more optimistic and more united people than at any time since the democratic revolution of 1974, show little sign of disagreeing with Mr Guterres's campaign slogan that their country is indeed "in good hands".