Portuguese legislative election, 1980

Portuguese legislative election, 1980

5 October 1980
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 125 seats needed for a majority
Registered	7,179,023 1.0%
Turnout	6,026,395 (83.9%) 1.0 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Francisco Sá Carneiro Mário Soares Álvaro Cunhal Party PSD PS PCP Alliance AD FRS APU Leader since 29 April 1979[lower-alpha 1] 19 April 1973[lower-alpha 2] 1979 Leader's seat Lisbon[1] Lisbon[2] Lisbon Last election 128 seats, 45.3% 74 seats, 27.3%1 47 seats, 18.8% Seats won 134 74 41 Seat change 6 0 6 Popular vote 2,868,076 1,673,279 1,009,505 Percentage 47.6% 27.8% 16.8% Swing 2.3 pp 0.5 pp 2.0 pp
The first and the second most voted parties in each district (Azores and Madeira are not shown)
Prime Minister before election Francisco Sá Carneiro PSD Elected Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro PSD

This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of Portugal
Portugal

The Portuguese legislative election of 1980 took place on 5 October. In January 1980, the Democratic Alliance, which had won the previous election, on 2 December 1979, entered office with Francisco Sá Carneiro leading the government. However, this election was an extraordinary election, and so, in 1980, another election was held.

Electoral system

The Parliament of the Portuguese Republic consists of a single chamber, the Assembly of the Republic, composed of 250 members directly elected by universal adult suffrage for a maximum term of four years. Assembly members represent the entire country, rather than the constituencies in which they were elected. Governments require majority support in the Assembly in order to remain in office.

Each one of Portugal's eighteen administrative districts, as well as each one of the country's two autonomous regions - the Azores and Madeira - is an electoral constituency. Portuguese voters residing outside the national territory are grouped into two electoral constituencies - Europe and the rest of the world - each one of which elects two Assembly members. The remaining 246 seats are allocated among the national territory constituencies in proportion to their number of registered electors.

Political parties and party coalitions may present lists of candidates. The lists are closed, so electors may not choose individual candidates in or alter the order of such lists. Electors cast a ballot for a single list. The seats in each constituency are divided among parties according to the largest average method of proportional representation (PR), conceived by the Belgian mathematician Victor d'Hondt in 1899. Although there is no statutory threshold for participation in the allocation of Assembly seats, there is an effective threshold at the constituency level that depends on the district magnitude.^[3] The use of the d'Hondt method makes for a higher effective threshold than certain other allocation method such as the Hare quota or Sainte-Laguë method, which are more generous to small parties.^[4]

Parties

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

• United People Alliance (APU), Álvaro Cunhal
• Republican and Socialist Front (FRS), Mário Soares
• Democratic Alliance (AD), Francisco Sá Carneiro

The leader of the Democratic Alliance, Francisco Sá Carneiro, member of the Social Democratic Party was nominated Prime-Minister.

National summary of votes and seats

 Summary of the 5 October 1980 Assembly of the Republic elections results

Parties			Votes	%	±	Seats					MPs %/ votes %
						1979	1980	±	%	±
		Democratic Alliance[A]	2,706,667	44.91	2.4	121	126	5	50.40	2.0	1.12
		Social Democratic[B]	147,644	2.45	0.1	7	8	1	3.20	0.4	1.31
		Democratic and Social Centre[B]	13,765	0.23	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
Total Democratic Alliance			2,868,076	47.59	2.3	128	134	6	53.60	2.4	1.13
		Republican and Socialist Front[C]	1,606,198	26.65	N/A	N/A	71	N/A	28.40	N/A	1.07
		Socialist[D]	67,081	1.11	N/A	74	3	N/A	1.20	N/A	1.08
Total Republican and Socialist Front			1,673,279	27.76	0.41	741	74	01	29.60	0.01	1.07
		United People Alliance[E]	1,009,505	16.75	2.0	47	41	6	16.40	2.4	0.98
		People's Democratic Union	83,204	1.38	0.8	1	1	0	0.40	0.0	0.29
		Workers Party of Socialist Unity	83,095	1.38	1.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
		Revolutionary Socialist	60,496	1.00	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
		Labour	39,408	0.65	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
		Workers' Communist Party	35,409	0.59	0.3	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
		PDC / MIRN/PDP / FN	23,819	0.40	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
		Democratic Party of the Atlantic	8,529	0.14	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
		OCMLP	3,913	0.06	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
Total valid			5,888,733	97.72	0.4	250	250	0	100.00	0	—
Blank ballots			34,552	0.57	0.1
Invalid ballots			103,140	1.71	0.3
Total (turnout 83.94%)			6,026,395	100.00	1.0
A Alliance formed by the Social Democratic Party (74 seats), the Democratic and Social Centre (46 seats) and the People's Monarchist Party (6 seats). B Social Democratic Party and Democratic and Social Centre electoral list only in Azores and Madeira. C Alliance formed by the Socialist Party (63 seats), the Leftwing Union for the Socialist Democracy (4 seats) and the Independent Social-Democratic Action (4 seats). D Socialist Party electoral list only in Azores and Madeira. E Portuguese Communist Party (39 MPs) and Portuguese Democratic Movement (2 MPs) ran in coalition.[5]
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

¹ Republican and Socialist Front results are compared to the combined totals of the Socialist Party in the 1979 election.

Notes

References

External links

• Comissão Nacional de Eleições
• Centro de Estudos do Pensamento Político

See also

• Politics of Portugal
• List of political parties in Portugal
• Elections in Portugal