1995 Portuguese legislative election

1995 Portuguese legislative election

1 October 1995
All 230 seats in the Assembly of the Republic 116 seats needed for a majority
Registered	8,906,608 5.3%
Turnout	5,904,854 (66.3%) 1.5 pp
First party Second party   Leader António Guterres Fernando Nogueira Party PS PSD Leader since 23 February 1992 19 February 1995 Leader's seat Castelo Branco Porto Last election 72 seats, 29.1% 135 seats, 50.6% Seats won 112 88 Seat change 40 47 Popular vote 2,583,755 2,014,589 Percentage 43.8% 34.1% Swing 14.7 pp 16.5 pp   Third party Fourth party   Leader Manuel Monteiro Carlos Carvalhas Party CDS–PP PCP Alliance CDU Leader since 22 March 1992 5 December 1992 Leader's seat Braga Lisbon Last election 5 seats, 4.4% 17 seats, 8.8% Seats won 15 15 Seat change 10 2 Popular vote 534,470 506,157 Percentage 9.1% 8.6% Swing 4.7 pp 0.2 pp
Prime Minister before election Aníbal Cavaco Silva PSD Prime Minister after election António Guterres PS

The 1995 Portuguese legislative election took place on 1 October. The election renewed all 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

The incumbent prime minister, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, decided not to run for a fourth consecutive term, and the Social Democratic Party choose Fernando Nogueira, one of Cavaco Silva's deputies, as leader and candidate for prime minister at a highly contested and bitter party congress in February 1995. But the PSD was weakened by the end of the 10-year cycle of governments led by Cavaco Silva, although during the campaign, Cavaco Silva toyed with the idea of running for the 1996 presidential election, which he ultimately did and lost.

The PS easily won the election with 44 percent of the votes, against the 34 percent of the PSD, achieving their first general election victory since 1983 and after a decade in opposition, but missed the absolute majority by just 4 MPs. António Guterres, elected as PS leader three years before, became prime minister. The Social Democratic Party suffered a heavy defeat, losing almost 50 seats and 17 percentage points. This election marked the growing bi-polarization of the Portuguese political map. The two minor parties, the People's Party (CDS–PP) and the Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU) achieved only 15 MPs each, and for the first time ever the CDU failed to win a single district, and saw CDS–PP surpassing them in votes for the first time since 1976.

Although turnout, in percentage points, was lower than the previous election in 1991, almost 6 million voters cast a ballot on election day, the highest figure since 1980. Voter turnout stood at 66.3 percent, the lowest until then.

Background

During his third term, Cavaco Silva's government continued the political and economic reforms, as well as infrastructure modernization, that characterized his previous two terms. However, during 1993, the economy entered a recession, forcing the government to implement financial restraint measures to control inflation and prepare the country for the European Single Currency, although growth resumed by early 1995. Recurring scandals involving government members, from accusations of nepotism and gaffes to corruption, as well as news implicating the Prime Minister himself, further eroded the government's position. The relationship between Cavaco Silva and President Mário Soares also suffered a significant deterioration. During this period, and despite having recovered some ground, the PSD was defeated in both the 1993 local elections and the 1994 European elections. Furthermore, just a few days after the 1994 European elections, the government's image was tarnished by the violent clashes and repression against the increase in tolls on the 25th of April Bridge.

Leadership changes and challenges

The four main parties all changed their leaders during the 1991–1995 legislature.

Socialist Party

The 1991 general election Socialist defeat, and the scale of it, surprised the party, with António Guterres actually saying "he was in shock". Then PS leader, Jorge Sampaio, faced a lot of criticisms regarding his strategy, but announced he was running for reelection as party leader. He would face António Guterres and Álvaro Beleza. A party leadership congress was called for February 1992, however, during the days prior to the start of the congress, Sampaio withdrew from the race and Guterres was easily elected as party leader: The results were the following:

Ballot: 21 February 1992

Candidate		Votes	%
	António Guterres	1,122	67.3
	Álvaro Beleza	190	11.4
	Jorge Sampaio	withdrew
Blank/Invalid ballots		354	21.2
Turnout		1,666
Source: Acção Socialista

CDS – People's Party

Then CDS leader, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, resigned from the leadership following the party's poor results in the 1991 general election. A party congress to elect a new leader was called for late March 1992 and 3 candidates were on the ballot: Manuel Monteiro, Basílio Horta, the party's candidate for the 1991 Presidential election and António Lobo Xavier. Manuel Monteiro was easily elected as leader:

Ballot: 21 March 1992

Candidate		Votes	%
	Manuel Monteiro	WIN
	Basílio Horta
	António Lobo Xavier
Turnout
Source:

Following Monteiro's election as leader, the name "People's Party (PP)" was added to the party's name in 1993, and officially approved by party delegates in a party congress two years later, in February 1995. Manuel Monteiro's more right-wing and eurosceptic positions, led party founder and former leader Freitas do Amaral to announce his departure from the party in 1992.

Portuguese Communist Party

The historic Portuguese Communist Party leader, Álvaro Cunhal, announced he would step down from the leadership of the party in late 1992. Carlos Carvalhas, the party's deputy leader was chosen as Cunhal's successor and was unanimously elected, but Cunhal remained a powerful figure within the party as a new body, the National Council, was created so that Cunhal could lead it.

Ballot: 5 December 1992

Candidate		Votes	%
	Carlos Carvalhas		100.0
Turnout
Source:

Social Democratic Party

After serving nearly 10 years as prime minister, there were doubts if Cavaco Silva would run for another term, thus creating a big "taboo" in Portuguese politics. Cavaco promised a decision during the spring of 1995, but in January 1995, he announced he would not run for another term as prime minister and PSD leader. This led the PSD to call a congress to elect a new leader. The congress become iconic for how tense and stormy it was, with strong accusations between several party members. Three candidates announced a run for the leadership: Former defense minister Fernando Nogueira, foreign affairs minister José Manuel Durão Barroso, and former culture secretary Pedro Santana Lopes. Santana Lopes withdrew before the ballot, and Fernando Nogueira narrowly defeated Durão Barroso by just 33 votes. The results were the following:

Ballot: 19 February 1995

Candidate		Votes	%
	Fernando Nogueira	532	51.6
	José Manuel Durão Barroso	499	48.4
	Pedro Santana Lopes	withdrew
Turnout		1,031
Source:

Electoral system

The Assembly of the Republic has 230 members elected to four-year terms. 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 116 (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 1991 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:

District	Number of MPs	Map
Lisbon	50	16 6 37 5 4 14 9 4 10 5 10 10 50 3 4 17 4 8 5 5 2 2
Porto	37
Setúbal(+1)	17
Braga	16
Aveiro	14
Leiria, Santarém and Coimbra	10
Viseu	9
Faro	8
Viana do Castelo	6
Azores, Castelo Branco, Madeira and Vila Real(–1)	5
Beja, Bragança, Évora and Guarda	4
Portalegre	3
Europe and Outside Europe	2

Parties

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 6th legislature (1991–1995) and that also partook in the election:

Name			Ideology	Political position	Leader	1991 result		Seats at dissolution
						%	Seats
	PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism Classical liberalism	Centre-right	Fernando Nogueira	50.6%	135 / 230	135 / 230
	PS	Socialist Party Partido Socialista	Social democracy Third Way	Centre-left	António Guterres	29.1%	72 / 230	72 / 230
	PCP	Portuguese Communist Party Partido Comunista Português	Communism Marxism–Leninism	Far-left	Carlos Carvalhas	8.8%	15 / 230	15 / 230
	PEV	Ecologist Party "The Greens" Partido Ecologista "Os Verdes"	Eco-socialism Green politics	Left-wing	Isabel Castro		2 / 230	2 / 230
	CDS–PP	CDS – People's Party Centro Democrático e Social – Partido Popular	Christian democracy National conservatism	Centre-right to right-wing	Manuel Monteiro	4.4%	5 / 230	4 / 230
	PSN	National Solidarity Party Partido da Solidariedade Nacional	Humanism Pensioners' rights	Centre	Carlos Bastos	1.7%	1 / 230	1 / 230
	Ind.	Independent Independente	Diogo Freitas do Amaral (left the CDS – People's Party caucus)					1 / 230

Seat changes

• On 9 December 1992, former party leader, founder and MP Diogo Freitas do Amaral, elected in the CDS list for Lisbon, left the party and became an Independent member following deep disagreements regarding the ideological and political direction of the party led by Manuel Monteiro, elected just a few months earlier.

Campaign period

Issues

By the start of the campaign, the Social Democratic Party (PSD), under the leadership of Fernando Nogueira, was behind the PS in the polls but slowly catching up. The almost certainty of Cavaco Silva running for the presidency of the republic, in January 1996, generated hopes of electoral success for the Social Democrats in the legislative election, and Nogueira publicly campaigned on this. However, Cavaco Silva himself thwarted this strategy by stating that he had not yet decided whether to run for president, and the PSD campaign never fully recovered from this blow by Cavaco Silva.

On the other hand, the Socialist Party (PS) had strong hopes of returning to power after a decade in opposition. For the campaign, the party presented itself with moderate policies, aligning with Third Way positions, showing a new and modern image, adding a rose to its logo, and slogans pointing to a more dialogical way of governing under Guterres, in contrast to the more authoritarian style that was associated with Cavaco Silva. The PS campaign was also marked by the use of the song 1492: Conquest of Paradise by Vangelis. The communist CDU alliance contested the first election without its historic leader, Álvaro Cunhal, on the lists, while the People's Party (CDS–PP) ran under a conservative platform, with strong opposition to the PSD and Cavaco Silva, and trying to win over their discontented supporters.

Party slogans

Party or alliance		Original slogan	English translation	Refs
	PSD	« Mais e melhor para Portugal »	"More and better for Portugal"
	PS	« A nova maioria »	"The new majority."
	CDU	« Vamos dar a volta a isto »	"Let's turn this around"
	CDS–PP	« Vamos dar lugar a Portugal »	"Let's make way for Portugal"

Candidates' debates

The 1995 debates, between PSD and PS leaders, Fernando Nogueira and António Guterres, respectively, were the first election debates between party leaders since the 1985 election. This was also the first legislative election covered by private broadcasters SIC and TVI, following the opening of television to private initiative and the end of RTP's state monopoly.

1995 Portuguese legislative election debates
Date	Organisers	Moderator(s)	P  Present    A  Absent invitee  N  Non-invitee
			PSD Nogueira	PS Guterres	Refs
6 Sep	RTP1	José Eduardo Moniz Maria Elisa Domingues	P	P
13 Sep	SIC	Miguel Sousa Tavares Margarida Marante	P	P

Opinion polling

See also: Exit poll and Opinion poll

The following table shows the opinion polls of voting intention of the Portuguese voters before the election. Included is also the result of the Portuguese general elections in 1991 and 1995 for reference.

Note, until 2000, the publication of opinion polls in the last week of the campaign was forbidden.

  Poll conducted after legal ban on opinion polls
  Exit poll

Polling firm/Link	Date Released					O	Lead
1995 legislative election	1 Oct 1995	34.1 88	43.8 112	8.6 15	9.1 15	4.4 0	9.7
Euroteste	1 Oct 1995	35–39 93	40–45 107	7–9 16	7–9 14	—	5–6
Metris	1 Oct 1995	34.5 89/95	42.2 105/111	9.0 14/18	9.2 12/16	5.1 0	7.7
UCP	1 Oct 1995	35.5	41	8	10	5.5	5.5
Norma	29 Sep 1995	40.3	35.2	9.7	9.3	5.5	5.1
Metris	23 Sep 1995	32	42	10	8	8	10
Euroteste	23 Sep 1995	35	39	9	10	7	4
Euroexpansão	23 Sep 1995	32.7 85/89	44.5 110/115	11.5 20/23	6.9 9	4.4	11.8
UCP	23 Sep 1995	35	40	9	10	6	5
DN/TSF	23 Sep 1995	33.6	49.7	—N/a	—N/a	16.7	16.1
IPSOS	22 Sep 1995	35	41	9	9	6	6
Marktest	21 Sep 1995	33	42	10	9	6	9
DN/TSF	18 Sep 1995	35	38	—N/a	—N/a	27	3
Compta	16 Sep 1995	39	40	12	8	1	1
Euroexpansão	16 Sep 1995	33.7 90/93	41.8 106/110	8.8 15/16	9.1 15	6.6	8.1
UCP	14 Sep 1995	34	42	—N/a	—N/a	24	8
Semanário	14 Sep 1995	38.5	40	—N/a	—N/a	21.5	1.5
DN/TSF	11 Sep 1995	42	42	—N/a	—N/a	17	Tie
Euroexpansão	9 Sep 1995	31.8 85/89	41.5 104/109	11.5 22/23	8.7 13/15	6.5	9.7
Euroexpansão	26 Aug 1995	31.5	36.6	6.6	10.8	14.5	5.1
Euroexpansão	29 Jul 1995	35.0	35.9	5.6	9.4	14.1	0.9
Compta RH	28 Jul 1995	35.8	43.6	11.7	7.0	1.8	7.8
Compta RH	14 Jul 1995	36.8	44.4	9.9	6.5	2.4	7.6
Euroexpansão	1 Jul 1995	30.4	37.6	8.6	10.2	13.2	7.2
Compta RH	30 Jun 1995	34.8	45.4	8.6	8.1	3.1	10.6
TVI/Público/Renascença	20 Jun 1995	35.6	40.9	7.4	7.0	9.1	5.3
Compta RH	9 Jun 1995	31.2	45.6	9.7	8.6	4.9	14.4
Euroexpansão	3 Jun 1995	29.6	39.2	5.9	8.3	17.0	9.6
Euroteste	1 May 1995	40.5	42.5	—N/a	—N/a	17	2
TVI/Público/Renascença	May 1995	32.8	44.1	—N/a	—N/a	23.1	11.3
1994 EP elections	12 Jun 1994	34.4	34.9	11.2	12.5	7.0	0.5
1993 local elections	12 Dec 1993	33.7	40.2	12.8	8.4	4.9	6.5
Euroteste	24 Sep 1993	44.5	34.8	10.0	8.7	2.0	9.7
Euroexpansão	29 May 1993	33.8	34.6	—N/a	—N/a	31.6	0.8
Euroteste	29 May 1993	45.5	34.3	—N/a	—N/a	20.2	11.2
Euroexpansão	May 1993	32.8	37.0	5.8	5.2	19.2	4.2
1991 legislative election	6 Oct 1991	50.6 135	29.1 72	8.8 17	4.4 5	7.1 1	21.5

Results

National summary

Party		Votes	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	Socialist Party	2,583,755	43.76	+14.63	112	+40
	Social Democratic Party	2,014,589	34.12	–16.48	88	–47
	CDS – People's Party	534,470	9.05	+4.62	15	+10
	Unitary Democratic Coalition	506,157	8.57	–0.23	15	–2
	Portuguese Workers' Communist Party	41,137	0.70	–0.15	0	0
	Revolutionary Socialist Party	37,638	0.64	–0.48	0	0
	Popular Democratic Union	33,876	0.57	+0.46	0	0
	National Solidarity Party	12,613	0.21	–1.47	0	–1
	Party of the Folk	8,279	0.14	New	0	New
	Earth Party	8,235	0.14	New	0	New
	Ecology and Future Coalition (PPM–MPT)	5,932	0.10	–0.34	0	0
	Unity Movement for Workers	2,544	0.04	New	0	New
	Democratic Party of the Atlantic	2,536	0.04	–0.15	0	0
Total		5,791,761	100.00	–	230	0
Valid votes		5,791,761	98.08	+0.01
Invalid votes		67,300	1.14	+0.04
Blank votes		45,793	0.78	–0.05
Total votes		5,904,854	100.00	–
Registered voters/turnout		8,906,608	66.30	–1.48
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share

PS			43.76%
PSD			34.12%
CDS-PP			9.05%
CDU			8.57%
PCTP/MRPP			0.70%
PSR			0.64%
UDP			0.57%
Others			0.67%
Blank/Invalid			1.92%

Parliamentary seats

PS			48.70%
PSD			38.26%
CDS-PP			6.52%
CDU			6.52%

Distribution by constituency

Results of the 1995 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the
Republic by constituency

Constituency	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	Total S
	PS		PSD		CDS–PP		CDU
Azores	37.6	2	47.8	3	9.4	-	1.8	-	5
Aveiro	40.2	6	41.2	6	12.6	2	2.7	-	14
Beja	45.8	2	15.7	1	3.6	-	29.2	1	4
Braga	42.9	8	38.2	7	10.7	1	4.5	-	16
Bragança	40.3	2	44.8	2	9.4	-	1.9	-	4
Castelo Branco	53.2	3	32.1	2	7.2	-	5.3	-	5
Coimbra	49.1	6	34.5	4	7.1	-	5.1	-	10
Évora	42.6	2	20.2	1	5.2	-	26.9	1	4
Faro	49.6	5	29.2	3	8.3	-	7.8	-	8
Guarda	43.7	2	39.9	2	9.9	-	2.3	-	4
Leiria	36.7	4	43.3	5	11.4	1	4.5	-	10
Lisbon	44.3	24	29.0	15	9.4	5	12.0	6	50
Madeira	32.0	2	46.1	3	12.9	-	1.3	-	5
Portalegre	50.5	2	23.4	1	6.3	-	14.0	-	3
Porto	46.7	18	36.4	14	7.8	3	6.0	2	37
Santarém	45.8	5	31.0	3	8.7	1	9.5	1	10
Setúbal	44.9	9	18.4	3	7.2	1	23.8	4	17
Viana do Castelo	38.8	3	42.1	3	11.3	-	4.6	-	6
Vila Real	40.0	2	46.0	3	7.8	-	1.9	-	5
Viseu	38.4	4	44.3	4	11.5	1	1.8	-	9
Europe	35.1	1	33.8	1	4.4	-	6.4	-	2
Outside Europe	12.8	-	69.3	2	3.8	-	1.2	-	2
Total	43.8	112	34.1	88	9.1	15	8.6	15	230
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

• 
  Winner and seats 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