1979 Portuguese legislative election

1979 Portuguese legislative election

2 December 1979
All 250 seats in the Assembly of the Republic 126 seats needed for a majority
Registered	7,249,346 10.4%
Turnout	6,007,453 (82.9%) 0.6 pp
First party Second party   Leader Francisco Sá Carneiro Mário Soares Party PSD PS Alliance AD Leader since 2 July 1978 19 April 1973 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 115 seats, 40.9% 107 seats, 34.9% Seats before 110† 105† Seats won 128 74 Seat change 18* 31* Popular vote 2,719,208 1,642,136 Percentage 45.3% 27.3% Swing 4.4 pp 7.6 pp   Third party Fourth party   Leader Álvaro Cunhal Mário Tomé Party PCP UDP Alliance APU Leader since 14 April 1978 1979 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 40 seats, 14.4% 1 seat, 1.7% Seats before 34† 1† Seats won 47 1 Seat change 13* 0 Popular vote 1,129,322 130,842 Percentage 18.8% 2.2% Swing 4.4 pp 0.5 pp
Prime Minister before election Maria de Lurdes Pintasilgo Independent Prime Minister after election Francisco Sá Carneiro PSD

The 1979 Portuguese legislative election took place on 2 December. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic, 13 seats less than those elected in 1976.

The special election was called by President António Ramalho Eanes in the summer of 1979 after three years of great instability, from Prime Minister Mário Soares' government collapsing in August 1978 to a succession of two ineffective Presidential appointed governments. Until the election, Eanes nominated Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, the first and still only woman to lead a government in Portugal, as prime minister.

In the election, the right-wing parties, the Social Democratic Party, the Democratic and Social Center and the People's Monarchist Party, united in the Democratic Alliance (Portuguese: Aliança Democrática or AD) under the leadership of Sá Carneiro, scored a historic victory, receiving 45 percent of the votes and an absolute majority in seats, the first right-wing and absolute majority win after the 1974 Carnation Revolution. The Socialists lost more than 30 MPs and the Communists, now allied with the Portuguese Democratic Movement in the United People Alliance achieved their highest total ever, with almost 20% of the voting, while the Popular Democratic Union (UDP) held on to its sole seat.

Another election would be held a year later, in October 1980, as determined by the decree that approved the Constitution, which stipulated that the first legislature had a fixed date of completion on 14 October 1980.

Turnout dropped slightly to 82.6 percent, but the number of ballots cast surpassed 6 million.

Background

See also: 1976 Portuguese legislative election § Fall of the government

In the previous election, three and a half years earlier, in April 1976, the Socialist Party won and Mário Soares became the Prime Minister of the 1st Constitutional Government after the revolution. However, the Government faced deep financial problems, having to ask for a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and in December 1977, Soares lost a vote of confidence in Parliament by 159 votes to 100, as all opposition parties—the Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), the Social Democrats (PSD), and the Communists (PCP)—united to vote against him, and thus, the Soares government fell. Soares would become Prime Minister again in January 1978, in coalition with the Democratic and Social Centre (branded as "putting socialism in the drawer"), but by July of the same year, CDS would force the end of the government due to disagreements about agrarian reforms, and President Ramalho Eanes dismissed Mário Soares from office.

A couple of failed presidential initiative governments followed. In August, Alfredo Nobre da Costa became prime minister by personal decision of President Eanes, however, Nobre da Costa's government program was rejected by parliament and two months later, Nobre da Costa was replaced by Carlos Mota Pinto who would govern with extreme difficulties for less than one year, facing strong parliamentary obstruction.

In July 1979, the President finally decided to dissolve Parliament and call for a new election for December of the same year. Mota Pinto was replaced in the period between the dissolution and the election by Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, the first and still only woman to lead a government in Portuguese history.

Leadership changes and challenges

Social Democratic Party

The PSD suffered a lot of internal divisions after the 1976 election. The party was essential divided between those who wanted the party to pursue a more social democratic path, and those who want a more center-right approach, these aligned with Francisco Sá Carneiro. Because of these disputes, Sá Carneiro leaves the leadership in November 1977, and is succeeded by António Sousa Franco, who moves the party more to the left. But, internal divisions continue, and in June 1978, a group of 42 PSD MPs release the "Unpostponable Options" manifesto where they attack Sá Carneiro and reaffirm the social democratic path with a candidacy to the Socialist International. Sá Carneiro returns to the leadership in the July 1978 party congress and one year later, 37 PSD MPs break with him and leave definitely the party, forming the Independent Social Democratic Action (ASDI), which would merge with the PS a few years later.

Ballot: 2 July 1978

Candidate		Votes	%
	Francisco Sá Carneiro	603	91.9
Blank/Invalid ballots		53	8.1
Turnout		656
Source: Diário de Lisboa

A few months after the congress that reinstated Sá Carneiro in the party's leadership, negotiations began between the PSD and CDS, and later also with the PPM, to form a coalition in order to contest the following election, with an agreement to form the Democratic Alliance (AD) being reached in July 1979.

Electoral system

The Assembly of the Republic has 250 members elected to four-year terms. The total number of MPs was reduced to 250 from the previous 263, elected in 1976. Governments do not require absolute majority support of the Assembly to hold office, as even if the number of opposers of government is larger than that of the supporters, the number of opposers still needs to be equal or greater than 126 (absolute majority) for both the Government's Programme to be rejected or for a motion of no confidence to be approved.

The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude. The use of the d'Hondt method makes for a higher effective threshold than certain other allocation methods such as the Hare quota or Sainte-Laguë method, which are more generous to small parties.

For these elections, and compared with the 1976 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:

District	Number of MPs	Map
Lisbon(–2)	56	15 6 38 6 4 15 10 5 12 6 11 12 56 4 5 17 5 9 5 5 2 2
Porto	38
Setúbal	17
Aveiro and Braga	15
Santarém(–1) and Coimbra	12
Leiria	11
Viseu(–1)	10
Faro	9
Castelo Branco(–1), Viana do Castelo(–1) and Vila Real(–1)	6
Azores(–1), Beja(–1), Évora(–1), Guarda(–1) and Madeira(–1)	5
Bragança(–1) and Portalegre	4
Europe and Outside Europe	2

Parties

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the first half of the 1st legislature (1976–1980), as this election was a national by-election, and that also contested the elections:

With the 1976 seat distribution

Name			Ideology	Political position	Leader	1976 result		Seats at dissolution
						%	Seats
	PS	Socialist Party Partido Socialista	Social democracy	Centre-left	Mário Soares	34.9%	107 / 263	102 / 263
	PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism	Centre-right	Francisco Sá Carneiro	24.4%	73 / 263	36 / 263
	CDS	Democratic and Social Center Centro Democrático e Social	Christian democracy	Centre-right to right-wing	Diogo Freitas do Amaral	16.0%	42 / 263	41 / 263
	PCP	Portuguese Communist Party Partido Comunista Português	Communism	Far-left	Álvaro Cunhal	14.4%	40 / 263	40 / 263
	UDP	Popular Democratic Union União Democrática Popular	Marxism Socialism	Left-wing	Mário Tomé	1.7%	1 / 263	1 / 263
	ASDI	Independent Social Democratic Action Acção Social Democrata Independente	Democratic Socialism Social democracy	Centre-left	António de Sousa Franco	N/A		37 / 263
	Ind.	Independent Independente	Carmelinda Pereira (left the Socialist Party caucus) Aires Rodrigues (left the Socialist Party caucus) Carlos Galvão de Melo (left the Democratic and Social Center caucus) António Lopes Cardoso (left the Socialist Party caucus) José Justiniano Pinto (left the Socialist Party caucus) Reinaldo Rodrigues (left the Socialist Party caucus)					6 / 263

Seat changes

• In January 1977, MPs Carmelinda Pereira and Aires Rodrigues were expelled from the Socialist Party caucus.
• In March 1977, MP Carlos Galvão de Melo left the Democratic and Social Center caucus.
• In November 1977, MPs António Lopes Cardoso, José Justiniano Pinto and Reinaldo Rodrigues left the Socialist Party caucus due to disagreements with the government led by Mário Soares.
• In July 1979, 37 MPs from the Social Democratic Party, led by António de Sousa Franco and Joaquim Magalhães Mota, left the party and formed a new party, the Independent Social Democratic Action, following a feud with PSD leader Francisco Sá Carneiro, in which was called the "Unpostponable Options" split, regarding the ideological path of the party.

1976 results with the new seat distribution

Name			Ideology	Political position	Leader	1976 notional result
						%	Seats
	PS	Socialist Party Partido Socialista	Social democracy	Centre-left	Mário Soares	34.9%	105 / 250
	PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism	Centre-right	Francisco Sá Carneiro	24.4%	70 / 250
	CDS	Democratic and Social Center Centro Democrático e Social	Christian democracy	Centre-right to right-wing	Diogo Freitas do Amaral	16.0%	40 / 250
	PCP	Portuguese Communist Party Partido Comunista Português	Communism	Far-left	Álvaro Cunhal	14.4%	34 / 250
	UDP	Popular Democratic Union União Democrática Popular	Marxism Socialism	Left-wing	Mário Tomé	1.7%	1 / 250

Campaign period

Issues

During the campaign, the Democratic Alliance (AD) ran on a platform for a strong and stable government, a revitalized private sector and for an improvement in living conditions. Sá Carneiro, the Alliance's leader, asserted that he would not accept to form a government if the AD failed to win a majority. The Socialist Party (PS), shaken after its time in unpopular governments marked by austerity and a decline in the population's quality of life, campaigned on the premise of being the center of Portuguese politics and the only party capable of preventing the polarization of society. The new communist alliance, the United People Alliance (APU) ran under the message of defending democracy against the reaction.

Party slogans

Party or alliance		Original slogan	English translation	Refs
	AD	« A maioria certa »	"The right majority"
	PS	« O direito à liberdade »	"The right to freedom"
	APU	« Para a vitória democrática »	"For the democratic victory"
	UDP	« O voto certo da mudança »	"The right vote for change"

Results

National summary

Party or alliance				Votes	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	Democratic Alliance		Democratic Alliance	2,554,458	42.52	—	121	—
			Social Democratic Party	141,227	2.35	—	7	—
			Democratic and Social Centre	23,523	0.39	—	0	—
		Total		2,719,208	45.26	+6.20	128	+13
	Socialist Party			1,642,136	27.33	–7.56	74	–33
	United People Alliance			1,129,322	18.80	+4.41	47	+7
	Popular Democratic Union			130,842	2.18	+0.51	1	0
	Christian Democratic Party			72,514	1.21	+0.73	0	0
	Portuguese Workers' Communist Party			53,268	0.89	+0.23	0	0
	Left-wing Union for the Socialist Democracy			43,325	0.72	New	0	New
	Revolutionary Socialist Party			36,978	0.62	+0.23	0	0
	Workers' Party of Socialist Unity			12,713	0.21	New	0	New
	Portuguese Marxist–Leninist Communist Organization			3,433	0.06	New	0	New
Total				5,843,739	100.00	–	250	–13
Valid votes				5,843,739	97.27	+1.97
Invalid votes				120,851	2.01	–2.69
Blank votes				42,863	0.71
Total votes				6,007,453	100.00	–
Registered voters/turnout				7,249,346	82.87	–0.66
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share

AD			42.52%
PS			27.33%
APU			18.80%
PSD			2.35%
UDP			2.18%
PDC			1.21%
PCTP/MRPP			0.89%
UEDS			0.72%
PSR			0.62%
Others			0.66%
Blank/Invalid			2.72%

Parliamentary seats

AD			48.40%
PS			29.60%
APU			18.80%
PSD			2.80%
UDP			0.40%

Distribution by constituency

Results of the 1979 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic
by constituency

Constituency	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	Total S
	AD		PS		APU		PSD		UDP
Azores			30.0	2	3.1	-	52.0	3	1.7	-	5
Aveiro	56.7	9	28.4	5	7.9	1			1.2	-	15
Beja	19.0	1	22.0	1	50.7	3			1.8	-	5
Braga	51.9	9	30.2	5	10.0	1			1.4	-	15
Bragança	60.7	3	22.2	1	5.8	-			1.9	-	4
Castelo Branco	49.9	4	27.8	2	12.4	-			1.9	-	6
Coimbra	44.8	6	35.1	5	11.2	1			1.3	-	12
Évora	26.9	1	16.9	1	48.9	3			1.7	-	5
Faro	34.6	4	34.0	3	20.3	2			3.2	-	9
Guarda	60.6	4	26.3	1	5.4	-			0.9	-	5
Leiria	56.2	7	23.2	3	10.9	1			1.5	-	11
Lisbon	40.0	24	25.8	15	26.0	16			2.8	1	56
Madeira			17.2	1	3.1	-	57.8	4	6.6	-	5
Portalegre	32.1	2	29.8	1	29.4	1			1.7	-	4
Porto	44.5	18	34.8	14	14.5	6			1.9	-	38
Santarém	41.3	6	27.3	3	21.7	3			2.2	-	12
Setúbal	22.3	4	21.4	4	47.0	9			4.0	-	17
Viana do Castelo	54.8	4	24.9	2	9.8	-			0.9	-	6
Vila Real	57.7	4	21.4	2	6.1	-			1.5	-	6
Viseu	64.1	8	21.4	2	5.5	-			1.4	-	10
Europe	38.3	1	33.2	1	13.4	-			5.7	-	2
Rest of the World	77.3	2	5.7	-	3.1	-			0.7	-	2
Total	42.5	121	27.3	74	18.8	47	2.4	7	2.2	1	250
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

• 
  Winner and seats by constituency.
• 
  First and second most voted political force by constituency.
• 
  Most voted political force by municipality.

See also

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

External links

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