1985 Portuguese legislative election

1985 Portuguese legislative election

← 1983 6 October 1985 1987 →
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 126 seats needed for a majority
Registered	7,818,981 6.6%
Turnout	5,798,929 (74.2%) 3.6 pp
First party Second party Third party   PRD Leader Aníbal Cavaco Silva Almeida Santos Hermínio Martinho Party PSD PS PRD Leader since 2 June 1985 13 June 1985 (interim) 10 July 1985 Leader's seat Lisbon[1] Porto[2] Santarem Last election 75 seats, 27.2% 101 seats, 36.1% New party Seats won 88 57 45 Seat change 13 44 N/A Popular vote 1,732,288 1,204,321 1,038,893 Percentage 29.9% 20.8% 17.9% Swing 2.7 pp 15.3 pp N/A   Fourth party Fifth party   CDS Leader Álvaro Cunhal Lucas Pires Party PCP CDS Alliance APU Leader since 1979 20 February 1983 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 44 seats, 18.1% 30 seats, 12.6% Seats won 38 22 Seat change 6 8 Popular vote 898,281 577,580 Percentage 15.5% 10.0% Swing 2.6 pp 2.6 pp
Results by district or autonomous region.
Prime Minister before election Mário Soares PS Elected Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva PSD

The Portuguese legislative election of 1985 took place on 6 October. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

In June of the same year, the then incumbent Prime Minister, Mário Soares, resigned from the job due to the lack of parliamentary support, the government was composed by a coalition of the two major parties, the center-right Social Democratic and the center-left Socialist, in what was called the Central Bloc, however this was an unstable balance of forces and several members of each party opposed such alliance.

The new leader of the Social Democratic Party, Cavaco Silva, elected in May, was among those that never supported such alliance, and short after being elected leader of the party made the coalition fall in July. Mário Soares didn't run again and resigned as party leader, as he decided to run for the 1986 Presidential elections. The PS nominated Almeida Santos, minister of state in Soares government, as intern leader and as the party candidate for Prime Minister.

A new election was called by the President and the Social Democrats won with a short majority and Cavaco became the Prime-Minister. The election was the first of three consecutive election victories for the Social Democratic Party. Meanwhile, a new party had been founded by supporters of the President Ramalho Eanes, the Democratic Renewal Party, led by Hermínio Martinho that surprisingly gained 45 MPs and more than one million votes in the election and became the parliamentary support of the Cavaco's government until 1987, when it removed its support, making Cavaco fall.

The Communists and the Socialists lost votes and MPs, and the left would only return to the government ten years later, in 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 1983 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:^[6]

District	Number of MPs
Lisbon	56
Porto	39 (+1)
Setúbal	17
Braga	16
Aveiro	15
Santarém	12
Leiria	11
Coimbra	11
Viseu	10
Faro	9
Viana do Castelo	6
Vila Real	6
Madeira	5
Azores	5
Beja	5
Castelo Branco	5
Évora	5
Guarda	5
Bragança	4
Portalegre	3 (-1)
Europe	2
Outside Europe	2

Parties[]

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 3rd legislature (1983-1985) and that also partook in the election:

Name			Ideology	Political position	Leader	1983 result[7]
						Votes (%)	Seats
	PS	Socialist Party Partido Socialista	Social democracy	Centre-left	Almeida Santos	36.1%	94 / 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		3 / 250
	PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism	Centre-right	Aníbal Cavaco Silva	27.2%	75 / 250
	PCP	Portuguese Communist Party Partido Comunista Português	Communism Marxism–Leninism	Far-left	Álvaro Cunhal	18.1% [a]	41 / 250
	MDP/CDE	Portuguese Democratic Movement Movimento Democrático Português	Left-wing nationalism Democratic socialism	Left-wing			3 / 250
	CDS	Democratic and Social Centre Centro Democrático e Social	Right-wing liberalism Neoliberalism	Centre-right to right-wing	Lucas Pires	12.6%	30 / 250

Campaign period[]

Party slogans[]

Party or alliance		Original slogan	English translation	Refs
	PS	« O que prometo, faço. Vamos a isto. »	"What I promise, I do. Let's do this."	[8]
	PSD	« Retomar a esperança »	"Resuming hope"	[9]
	APU	« Vitória da APU para salvar o país »	"Victory for APU to save the country"	[10]
	CDS	« Confiança, razão, força para Portugal »	"Trust, reason, strength for Portugal"	[11]
	PRD	« Mais Portugal »	"More Portugal"	[12]

Candidates' debates[]

1985 Portuguese legislative election debates
Date	Organisers	Moderator(s)	P  Present    A  Absent invitee  N  Non-invitee
			PS Santos	PSD Cavaco	APU Cunhal	CDS Pires	Refs
3 Sep	RTP1		P	A[b]	P	P	[13]
5 Sep	RTP1		N	A[c]	P	P	[14]
10 Sep	RTP1		P	P	N	P	[15]
12 Sep	RTP1		P	P	P	N	[15]
Candidate viewed as "most convincing" in each debate
Date	Organisers	Polling firm/Link
			PS	PSD	APU	CDS	Notes
3 Sep	RTP1	Expresso	36	N/A	23	25	16% Neither

Opinion polling[]

The following table shows the opinion polls of voting intention of the Portuguese voters before the election. Those parties that are listed were represented in parliament (1983-1985). Included is also the result of the Portuguese general elections in 1983 and 1985 for reference.

  Exit poll

Date Released	Polling Firm	PS					Others	Lead
6 Oct 1985	Leg. Election	20.8 57	29.9 88	15.5 38	10.0 22	17.9 45	5.9 0	9.1
6 Oct 1985(22:50)	RTP1	22.0–26.9	26.8–29.7	15.0–18.1	9.3–10.8	14.5–16.5	–	2.8–4.8
6 Oct 1985 (21:10)	RTP1	23.8–26.9	28.0–29.8	17.3–18.1	9.8–10.7	11.1–14.9	–	2.9–6.0
6 Oct 1985	Rádio Comercial	19.0–22.0	29.0–31.0	14.0–16.0	8.0–16.0	18.0–22.0	–	9.0–10.0
4 Oct 1985	Expresso	28.0–32.0	27.0–31.0	15.0–17.0	9.0–12.0	8.0–11.0	���	1.0
25 Apr 1983	Leg. Election	36.1 101	27.2 75	18.1 44	12.6 30	Did not exist	6.0 0	8.9

National summary of votes and seats[]

Summary of the 6 October 1985 Assembly of the Republic elections results

Parties		Votes	%	±	MPs					MPs %/ votes %
					1983	1985	±	%	±
	Social Democratic	1,732,288	29.87	2.7	75	88	13	35.20	5.2	1.18
	Socialist	1,204,321	20.77	15.3	101	57	44	22.80	17.6	1.10
	Democratic Renewal	1,038,893	17.92	N/A	N/A	45	N/A	18.00	N/A	1.00
	United People Alliance[A]	898,281	15.49	2.6	44	38	6	15.20	2.4	0.98
	Democratic and Social Centre	577,580	9.96	2.6	30	22	8	8.80	3.2	0.88
	People's Democratic Union	73,401	1.27	0.8	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Christian Democratic	41,831	0.72	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist	35,238	0.61	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Portuguese Workers' Communist	19,943	0.34	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Workers Party of Socialist Unity	19,085	0.33	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Communist Party (Reconstructed)	12,749	0.22	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
Total valid		5,653,610	97.49	0.1	250	250	0	100.00	0.0	—
Blank ballots		48,709	0.84	0.1
Invalid ballots		96,610	1.67	0.1
Total		5,798,929	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		7,818,981	74.16	3.6
A Portuguese Communist Party (35 MPs) and Portuguese Democratic Movement (3 MPs) ran in coalition.[16]
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share PSD   29.87% PS   20.77% PRD   17.92% APU   15.49% CDS   9.96% UDP   1.27% PDC   0.72% PSR   0.61% Others   0.89% Blank/Invalid   2.51%

Parliamentary seats PSD   35.20% PS   22.80% PRD   18.00% APU   15.20% CDS   8.80%

Distribution by constituency[]

Results of the 1985 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic
by constituency

Constituency	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	Total S
	PSD		PS		PRD		APU		CDS
Azores	48.3	3	20.1	1	15.2	1	4.4	-	6.5	-	5
Aveiro	38.4	6	23.0	4	13.4	2	6.5	1	13.5	2	15
Beja	13.7	1	20.1	1	11.6	-	44.9	3	2.2	-	5
Braga	32.8	6	21.8	4	16.8	3	8.5	1	14.0	2	16
Bragança	39.2	2	22.7	1	6.9	-	5.3	-	17.1	1	4
Castelo Branco	31.2	3	18.5	1	24.4	2	8.9	-	9.6	-	6
Coimbra	29.5	4	28.5	3	16.9	2	10.1	1	8.6	1	11
Évora	19.1	1	14.3	1	15.8	1	41.2	2	3.3	-	5
Faro	28.4	3	22.3	2	20.5	2	15.4	2	6.1	-	9
Guarda	33.6	2	23.3	2	10.9	-	5.2	-	19.5	1	5
Leiria	38.6	5	19.6	2	15.3	2	7.9	1	12.2	1	11
Lisbon	25.6	15	19.8	12	21.3	13	20.1	12	8.1	4	56
Madeira	56.8	4	13.2	1	9.7	-	3.2	-	7.8	-	5
Portalegre	20.9	1	23.7	1	18.9	-	25.2	1	4.9	-	3
Porto	29.3	12	23.6	10	20.5	8	12.1	5	9.8	4	39
Santarém	27.8	4	18.6	2	23.8	3	16.4	2	7.7	1	12
Setúbal	15.4	3	16.5	3	20.4	4	38.2	7	3.8	-	17
Viana do Castelo	33.5	3	18.4	1	16.2	1	8.2	-	16.6	1	6
Vila Real	42.2	3	23.0	2	8.6	-	5.9	-	12.5	1	6
Viseu	37.7	5	20.0	2	10.9	1	5.0	-	19.9	2	10
Europe	24.3	1	24.2	1	7.1	-	18.8	-	17.3	-	2
Rest of the World	40.5	1	7.8	-	3.3	-	2.6	-	37.9	1	2
Total	29.9	88	20.8	57	17.9	45	15.5	38	10.0	22	250
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps[]

• 

  Most voted political force by municipality.

See also[]

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

Notes[]

References[]

Sources[]

• Fundação Mário Soares (1985). "Eurico de Melo parte loiça nos estúdios de televisão" (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.

External links[]

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