1983 Portuguese legislative election
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250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 125 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Registered | 7,337,064 ![]() | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 5,707,695 (77.8%)![]() | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() Results by district or autonomous region. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1983 Portuguese legislative election took place on 25 April. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic.
The last election, in October 1980 had been won by a right-wing coalition, the Democratic Alliance (AD) 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 4 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 1982, 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 1982, and also influenced by the AD's bad results in the 1982 local elections, Balsemão himself 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. Shortly after, the AD was dissolved as PSD, CDS and PPM decided to run alone.
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, which achieved 27%, 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 Assembly of the Republic has 250 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 126 (absolute majority) for both the Government's Programme to be rejected or for a motion of no confidence to be approved.[3]
The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude.[4] 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.[5]
For these elections, and compared with the 1980 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:[6]
District | Number of MPs |
---|---|
Lisbon | 56 |
Porto | 38 |
Setúbal | 17 |
Braga | 16 (+1) |
Aveiro | 15 |
Santarém | 12 |
Leiria | 11 |
Coimbra | 11 (-1) |
Viseu | 10 |
Faro | 9 |
Castelo Branco | 6 |
Viana do Castelo | 6 |
Vila Real | 6 |
Madeira | 5 |
Azores | 5 |
Beja | 5 |
Évora | 5 |
Guarda | 5 |
Bragança | 4 |
Portalegre | 4 |
Europe | 2 |
Outside Europe | 2 |
Parties[]
The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 2nd legislature (1980-1983) and that also contested the elections:
Name | Ideology | Political position | Leader | 1980 result[7] | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Votes (%) | Seats | ||||||
PPD/PSD | Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata |
Portuguese social democracy | Centre | Carlos Mota Pinto | 47.6%[b] | 82 / 250
| |
CDS | Democratic and Social Center Centro Democrático e Social |
Right-wing liberalism Neoliberalism |
Centre-right to right-wing |
Francisco Lucas Pires | 46 / 250
| ||
PPM | People's Monarchist Party Partido Popular Monárquico |
Monarchism Green conservatism |
Right-wing | Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles | 6 / 250
| ||
PS | Socialist Party Partido Socialista |
Social democracy | Centre-left | Mário Soares | 27.8%[a] | 66 / 250
| |
UEDS | Left-wing Union for the Socialist Democracy União da Esquerda para a Democracia Socialista |
Democratic Socialism Workers' self-management |
Left-wing | António Lopes Cardoso | 4 / 250
| ||
ASDI | Acção Social Democrata Independente |
Democratic Socialism Social democracy |
Centre-left | António de Sousa Franco | 4 / 250
| ||
PCP | Portuguese Communist Party Partido Comunista Português |
Communism Marxism–Leninism |
Far-left | Álvaro Cunhal | 16.8%[c] | 39 / 250
| |
MDP/CDE | Portuguese Democratic Movement Movimento Democrático Português |
Left-wing nationalism Democratic socialism |
Left-wing | 2 / 250
| |||
UDP | Popular Democratic Union União Democrática Popular |
Marxism Socialism |
Left-wing | 1.4% | 1 / 250
|
Campaign period[]
Party slogans[]
Party or alliance | Original slogan | English translation | Refs | |
---|---|---|---|---|
PSD | « Firmeza na decisão. Competência na acção. » | "Firmness in the decision. Competence in action." | [8] | |
PS | « Juntos vamos conseguir » | "Together we will do it" | [9] | |
CDS | « O nosso caminho é Portugal » | "Our path is Portugal" | [10] | |
APU | « Vota APU, A solução! » | "Vote APU, The Solution!" | [11] |
Candidates' debates[]
1983 Portuguese legislative election debates | ||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Date | Organisers | Moderator(s) | P Present A Absent invitee N Non-invitee | |||||||||||||||||
PSD Pinto |
PS Soares |
CDS Pires |
APU Cunhal |
Refs | ||||||||||||||||
23 Mar | Antena 1 | P | P | P | P | [12] | ||||||||||||||
31 Mar | RTP1 | P | P | P | P | [13] |
National summary of votes and seats[]
![]() | ||||||||||
Parties | Votes | % | ± | Seats | MPs %/ votes % | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1980 | 1983 | ± | % | ± | ||||||
Socialist[d][a] | 2,061,309 | 36.11 | ![]() |
66 | 101 | ![]() |
40.40 | ![]() |
1.12 | |
Social Democratic[b] | 1,554,804 | 27.24 | N/A | 82 | 75 | ![]() |
30.00 | ![]() |
1.10 | |
United People Alliance[c] | 1,031,609 | 18.07 | ![]() |
41 | 44 | ![]() |
17.60 | ![]() |
0.97 | |
Democratic and Social Centre[b] | 716,705 | 12.56 | N/A | 46 | 30 | ![]() |
12.00 | ![]() |
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 | ![]() |
0.00 | ![]() |
0.0 | |
People's Democratic Union | 27,260 | 0.48 | ![]() |
1 | 0 | ![]() |
0.00 | ![]() |
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 | 0 | ![]() |
0.00 | ![]() |
0.0 | |
Workers Party of Socialist Unity | 19,657 | 0.34 | ![]() |
0 | 0 | ![]() |
0.00 | ![]() |
0.0 | |
Revolutionary Socialist | 13,327 | 0.23 | ![]() |
0 | 0 | ![]() |
0.00 | ![]() |
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 | ![]() |
0.00 | ![]() |
0.0 | |
Democratic Party of the Atlantic | 5,523 | 0.10 | ![]() |
0 | 0 | ![]() |
0.00 | ![]() |
0.0 | |
Communist Party (Reconstructed)[e] | 86 | 0.00 | N/A | N/A | 0 | N/A | 0.00 | N/A | 0.0 | |
Total valid | 5,561,011 | 97.43 | ![]() |
250 | 250 | ![]() |
100.00 | ![]() |
— | |
Blank ballots | 42,494 | 0.74 | ![]() |
|||||||
Invalid ballots | 104,276 | 1.83 | ![]() | |||||||
Total | 5,707,695 | 100.00 | ||||||||
Registered voters/turnout | 7,337,064 | 77.79 | ![]() | |||||||
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições, Mapa oficial. D.R. n.º 121, Suplemento, Série I de 1983-05-26 |
Distribution by constituency[]
Constituency | % | S | % | S | % | S | % | S | Total S |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PS | PSD | APU | CDS | ||||||
Azores | 31.1 | 2 | 54.4 | 3 | 3.1 | - | 4.7 | - | 5 |
Aveiro | 36.6 | 6 | 34.8 | 6 | 7.0 | 1 | 16.4 | 2 | 15 |
Beja | 28.0 | 2 | 11.8 | - | 49.4 | 3 | 4.1 | - | 5 |
Braga | 39.7 | 7 | 27.0 | 5 | 8.8 | 1 | 18.3 | 3 | 16 |
Bragança | 30.4 | 1 | 35.8 | 2 | 4.8 | - | 20.9 | 1 | 4 |
Castelo Branco | 37.1 | 3 | 30.6 | 2 | 11.3 | - | 13.2 | 1 | 6 |
Coimbra | 45.3 | 6 | 27.8 | 3 | 10.7 | 1 | 10.2 | 1 | 11 |
Évora | 23.9 | 1 | 18.6 | 1 | 47.6 | 3 | 4.5 | - | 5 |
Faro | 43.2 | 5 | 23.1 | 2 | 18.6 | 2 | 7.4 | - | 9 |
Guarda | 33.5 | 2 | 31.5 | 2 | 4.9 | - | 23.8 | 1 | 5 |
Leiria | 32.7 | 4 | 35.6 | 4 | 9.5 | 1 | 16.2 | 2 | 11 |
Lisbon | 35.8 | 21 | 21.8 | 13 | 25.3 | 15 | 11.7 | 7 | 56 |
Madeira | 24.4 | 1 | 56.2 | 4 | 2.8 | - | 8.2 | - | 5 |
Portalegre | 38.5 | 2 | 19.1 | 1 | 28.7 | 1 | 7.5 | - | 4 |
Porto | 43.0 | 18 | 26.2 | 10 | 13.6 | 5 | 12.5 | 5 | 38 |
Santarém | 38.4 | 5 | 24.7 | 3 | 20.0 | 3 | 10.0 | 1 | 12 |
Setúbal | 30.6 | 6 | 12.7 | 2 | 45.8 | 8 | 5.1 | 1 | 17 |
Viana do Castelo | 32.5 | 2 | 32.6 | 3 | 9.9 | - | 18.4 | 1 | 6 |
Vila Real | 32.3 | 2 | 42.0 | 3 | 5.4 | - | 12.7 | 1 | 6 |
Viseu | 30.9 | 4 | 36.6 | 4 | 4.6 | - | 20.7 | 2 | 10 |
Europe | 33.6 | 1 | 31.2 | 1 | 17.1 | - | 11.1 | - | 2 |
Outside Europe | 7.0 | - | 48.2 | 1 | 2.8 | - | 34.1 | 1 | 2 |
Total | 36.1 | 101 | 27.2 | 75 | 18.1 | 44 | 12.6 | 30 | 250 |
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições |
Maps[]
Most voted political force by municipality.
Notes[]
- ^ a b c The Socialist Party (PS), the Left-wing Union for the Socialist Democracy (UEDS) and the Independent Social-Democratic Action (ASDI) contested the 1980 election in a coalition called Republican and Socialist Front (FRS) and won a combined 27.8% of the vote and elected 74 MPs to parliament.
- ^ a b c d e f The Social Democratic Party (PSD), the Democratic Social Center (CDS) and the People's Monarchist Party (PPM) contested the 1980 election in a coalition called Democratic Alliance (AD) and won a combined 47.6% of the vote and elected 134 MPs to parliament.
- ^ a b The Portuguese Communist Party (41 MPs) and Portuguese Democratic Movement (3 MPs) ran in coalition.
- ^ The Socialist Party (PS) results are compared to the combined total share of the vote from the Republican and Socialist Front and from the 66 seats elected by the PS, within the coalition, in the 1980 election.
- ^ The Communist Party (Reconstructed) list only in Europe and Rest of the World.
References[]
- ^ Fundação Mário Soares
- ^ Diário da Républica, 26 de Maio de 1983 - Lista de candidatos eleitos[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Constitution of the Portuguese Republic" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
- ^ "Effective threshold in electoral systems". Trinity College, Dublin. Retrieved 2015-10-21.
- ^ Gallaher, Michael (1992). "Comparing Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Quotas, Thresholds, Paradoxes and Majorities"
- ^ "Eleição da Assembleia da República de 25 de Abril de 1983". CNE - Comissão Nacional de Eleições - Eleição da Assembleia da República de 25 de Abril de 1983. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
- ^ Composição dos Grupos Parlamentares/Partidos
- ^ "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1983 – PSD". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
- ^ "Evolução da Comunicação Política e Eleitoral em Portugal" (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
- ^ "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1985 – CDS". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
- ^ "Comunicação Política em eleições legislativas em Portugal: uma análise a partir dos cartazes eleitorais (1975-2009)" (PDF). Francisco Teixeira (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
- ^ "Debate entre líderes partidários na RDP". RTP (in Portuguese). 1983. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
- ^ "Corpo a corpo esta noite na RTP". Fundação Mário Soares (in Portuguese). 1983. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
External links[]
See also[]
- Legislative elections in Portugal
- 1983 elections in Portugal
- April 1983 events in Europe