Portuguese legislative election, 1983

Portuguese legislative election, 1983

25 April 1983
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 125 seats needed for a majority
Registered	7,337,064 2.2%
Turnout	5,707,695 (77.8%) 6.1 pp
First party Second party   Leader Mário Soares Carlos Mota Pinto Party PS PSD Leader since 19 April 1973 presumptive Leader's seat Lisbon[1] Coimbra[2] Last election 74 seats, 27.8%1 82 seats [lower-alpha 1] Seats won 101 75 Seat change 27 7 Popular vote 2,061,309 1,554,804 Percentage 36.1% 27.2% Swing 8.3 pp [lower-alpha 1]   Third party Fourth party   Leader Álvaro Cunhal Lucas Pires Party PCP CDS Alliance APU Leader since 1979 20 February 1983 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 41 seats, 16.8% 46 seats [lower-alpha 1] Seats won 44 30 Seat change 3 16 Popular vote 1,031,609 716,705 Percentage 18.1% 12.6% Swing 1.3 pp [lower-alpha 1]
The first and the second most voted parties in each district (Azores and Madeira are not shown)
Prime Minister before election Francisco Pinto Balsemão PSD Elected Prime Minister Mário Soares PS

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

The Portuguese legislative election of 1983 took place on 25 April. The last election, in October 1980 had been won by a right-wing coalition, the Democratic Alliance and Francisco Sá Carneiro had retained office as Prime Minister with an increased majority.

However, Sá Carneiro, along with other important members of the coalition, died in an aircrash only two months after the election, on 5 December 1980. Such happenings caused a massive political instability and Francisco Pinto Balsemão, a senior official of the Social Democratic Party, the largest party in the Alliance, became Prime Minister. But Balsemão lacked support from such senior members of his party as Aníbal Cavaco Silva, and several ministers resigned. Moreover, the right-wing policy was criticized by the left-wing and by the trade unions, and in February, the General Confederation of the Portuguese Workers, with the support of the Communists, called for a general strike that shook the government. The wave of resignations among Balsemão's ministers continued and by the end of the year, he also resigned. Because no one inside the Social Democratic Party accepted the office of Prime Minister, the President Ramalho Eanes dissolved the Parliament and called an election for April.

The election was won by the Socialist Party with 36%, and Mário Soares was nominated Prime Minister. However, the Socialists lacked a majority in the Assembly of the Republic and were forced to form a coalition with the Social Democrats, in what was called the "Central Block". Although this coalition allowed Soares to govern, several members of both parties were against it, and internal attacks led to the collapse of the coalition after less than two years. In the election that followed, the Communist-dominated United People Alliance lost 3 MPs and the Democratic and Social Center, after the dissolution of the Democratic Alliance, was now alone in the Parliament with 30 MPs, a loss of 16. The election marked the beginning of a process of bi-polarization of Portuguese politics.

This was the last legislative election to be won by the Socialist Party until 1995.

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
• Socialist Party (PS), Mário Soares
• Social Democratic Party (PSD), Mota Pinto
• Democratic and Social Center (CDS), Lucas Pires

Mário Soares, leader of the Socialist Party, was nominated Prime Minister.

National summary of votes and seats

 Summary of the 25 April 1983 Assembly of the Republic elections results

Parties		Votes	%	±	Seats					MPs %/ votes %
					1980	1983	±	%	±
	Socialist[A]	2,061,309	36.11	8.41	741	101	271	40.40	10.81	1.12
	Social Democratic[B]	1,554,804	27.24	N/A	82	75	7	30.00	2.8	1.10
	United People Alliance[C]	1,031,609	18.07	1.3	41	44	3	17.60	1.2	0.97
	Democratic and Social Centre[B]	716,705	12.56	N/A	46	30	16	12.00	6.4	0.96
	Christian Democratic	39,180	0.69	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
	People's Monarchist[B]	27,635	0.48	N/A	6	0	6	0.00	2.4	0.0
	People's Democratic Union	27,260	0.48	0.9	1	0	1	0.00	0.4	0.0
	People's Democratic Union / PSR	25,222	0.44	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
	Portuguese Workers' Communist	20,995	0.37	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Workers Party of Socialist Unity	19,657	0.34	1.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist	13,327	0.23	0.8	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Socialist Workers League	11,500	0.20	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
	OCMLP	6,113	0.11	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Democratic Party of the Atlantic	5,523	0.10	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Communist Party (Reconstructed)[D]	86	0.00	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
Total valid		5,561,011	97.43	0.3	250	250	0	100.00	0.0	—
Blank ballots		42,494	0.74	0.1
Invalid ballots		104,276	1.83	0.1
Total (turnout 77.79%)		5,707,695	100.00	6.1
A The Socialist Party contested the 1980 election in a coalition (Republican and Socialist Front). B The Social Democratic Party, the Democratic and Social Centre and the People's Monarchist Party contested, together, the 1980 election in a coalition (Democratic Alliance). C Portuguese Communist Party (41 MPs) and Portuguese Democratic Movement (3 MPs) ran in coalition.[5] D Communist Party (Reconstructed) list only in Europe and Rest of the World.
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições, Mapa oficial. D.R. n.º 121, Suplemento, Série I de 1983-05-26

¹ Socialist Party results are compared to the combined totals of the Republican and Socialist Front in the 1980 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