1987 Portuguese legislative election

1987 Portuguese legislative election

← 1985 19 July 1987 1991 →
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 126 seats needed for a majority
Registered	7,930,668 1.4%
Turnout	5,676,358 (71.6%) 2.6 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Aníbal Cavaco Silva Vítor Constâncio Álvaro Cunhal Party PSD PS PCP Alliance CDU Leader since 2 June 1985 29 June 1986 30 September 1987 Leader's seat Lisbon[1] Lisbon[2] Lisbon Last election 88 seats, 29.9% 57 seats, 20.8% 38 seats, 15.5% Seats won 148 60 31 Seat change 60 3 7 Popular vote 2,850,784 1,262,506 689,137 Percentage 50.2% 22.2% 12.1% Swing 20.3 pp 1.4 pp 3.4 pp   Fourth party Fifth party   CDS Leader Ramalho Eanes Adriano Moreira Party PRD CDS Leader since 1986 24 February 1985 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 45 seats, 17.9% 22 seats, 10.0% Seats won 7 4 Seat change 38 18 Popular vote 278,561 251,987 Percentage 4.9% 4.4% Swing 13.0 pp 5.6 pp
Results by district or autonomous region.
Prime Minister before election Aníbal Cavaco Silva PSD Elected Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva PSD

The Portuguese legislative election of 1987 took place on 19 July. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

In the previous election, in 1985, the Social Democratic Party had won a minority government managing to survive in coalition with the Democratic and Social Center and the Democratic Renewal Party, and after the approval of a no-confidence motion from the left-wing parties, with the aid of the Democratic Renewal Party, the government fell. The PS tried to form a new government with the support of the PRD and CDU, but Mário Soares, the President at the time, rejected the idea and called for a new election.^[3]

The PSD was reelected in a landslide, winning a majority government with just over 50% of the votes and 148 of the 250 seats, a majority of 22. Not only was this the most seats that a Portuguese party had ever won in a free election, but it was first time since the Carnation Revolution that a single party won an absolute majority. Although the PSD was very popular going into the election, the size of its victory far exceeded the party's most optimistic expectations. The PSD won every district with the exception of Setúbal, Évora and Beja, which voted for the CDU.

The Socialist Party gained a few seats and got a slightly higher share of the vote, 22% compared with the almost 21% in 1985, but the scale of the PSD victory made the party lose most of its influence. Like in 1979, 1980 and 1985, the PS failed to win a single district. The left-wing Democratic Unity Coalition lost some of its MPs to the Socialist Party and the Democratic Renovator Party, now led by former President António Ramalho Eanes, lost almost all of its influence, mainly due to its responsibility in the fall of the former PSD minority government. The right-wing Democratic and Social Center lost almost half of its vote share, due to the effect of tactical voting for the also right-wing, Social Democratic Party.

European elections were held on the same day.

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.^[4]

The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude.^[5] 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.^[6]

For these elections, and compared with the 1985 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:^[7]

District	Number of MPs
Lisbon	56
Porto	39
Setúbal	17
Braga	17 (+1)
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
Guarda	5
Bragança	4
Évora	4 (-1)
Portalegre	3
Europe	2
Outside Europe	2

Parties[]

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 4th legislature (1985-1987) and that also partook in the election:

Name			Ideology	Political position	Leader	1985 result
						Votes (%)	Seats
	PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism Classical liberalism	Centre-right	Aníbal Cavaco Silva	29.9%	88 / 250
	PS	Socialist Party Partido Socialista	Social democracy	Centre-left	Vítor Constâncio	20.8%	57 / 250
	PRD	Democratic Renewal Party Partido Renovador Democrático	Centrism Third Way	Centre	António Ramalho Eanes	17.9%	45 / 250
	PCP	Portuguese Communist Party Partido Comunista Português	Communism Marxism–Leninism	Far-left	Álvaro Cunhal	15.5% [a]	35 / 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	Christian democracy Conservatism	Centre-right to right-wing	Adriano Moreira	10.0%	22 / 250

Campaign period[]

Party slogans[]

Party or alliance		Original slogan	English translation	Refs
	PSD	« Portugal não pode parar »	"Portugal can't stop"	[8]
	PS	« A alternativa »	"The alternative"	[9]
	CDU	« CDU, É melhor para Portugal »	"CDU, It's better for Portugal"	[10]
	PRD	« Agora Portugal »	"Now Portugal"	[11]
	CDS	« Vote prá maioria »	"Vote for the majority"	[12]

Candidates' debates[]

No debates between the main parties were held as the PSD leader and Prime Minister, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, refused to take part in any debate.^[13]

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 (1985-1987). Included is also the result of the Portuguese general elections in 1985 and 1987 for reference.

  Exit poll

Date Released	Polling Firm		PS				Others	Lead
19 Jul 1987	Leg. Election	50.2 148	22.2 60	4.9 7	12.1 31	4.4 4	6.2 0	28.0
19 Jul 1987	RTP1	48.0–50.0	21.0–23.0	5.0–7.0	12.5–14.5	3.0–5.0	–	27.0
19 Jul 1987	Antena1	45.0–47.0	24.0–25.0	–	–	–	–	21.0–22.0
17 Jul 1987	Euroexpansão/Expresso	41.0–44.0	22.0–25.0	11.0–14.0	13.0–15.0	4.0–6.0	–	19.0
15 Dec 1985	Local Elections	34.2	27.6	4.7	19.6	9.8	4.1	6.6
6 Oct 1985	Leg. Election	29.9 88	20.8 57	17.9 45	15.5 38	10.0 22	5.9 0	9.1

National summary of votes and seats[]

Summary of the 19 July 1987 Assembly of the Republic elections results

Parties		Votes	%	±	MPs					MPs %/ votes %
					1985	1987	±	%	±
	Social Democratic	2,850,784	50.22	20.3	88	148	60	59.20	24.0	1.18
	Socialist	1,262,506	22.24	1.4	57	60	3	24.00	1.2	1.08
	Democratic Unity Coalition[A][B]	689,137	12.14	3.4	38	31	7	12.40	2.8	1.02
	Democratic Renewal	278,561	4.91	13.0	45	7	38	2.80	15.2	0.57
	Democratic and Social Centre	251,987	4.44	5.6	22	4	18	1.60	7.2	0.36
	People's Democratic Union	50,717	0.89	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist	32,977	0.58	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Portuguese Democratic Movement	32,607	0.57	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
	Christian Democratic	31,667	0.56	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	People's Monarchist	23,218	0.41	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
	Portuguese Workers' Communist	20,800	0.37	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Communist Party (Reconstructed)	18,544	0.33	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Workers Party of Socialist Unity	9,185	0.16	0.6	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
Total valid		5,552,690	97.82	0.3	250	250	0	100.00	0.0	—
Blank ballots		50,135	0.88	0.1
Invalid ballots		73,533	1.30	0.4
Total		5,676,358	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		7,930,668	71.57	2.6
A In 1985, as United People Alliance. B Portuguese Communist Party (29 MPs) and "The Greens" (2 MPs) ran in coalition.[14]
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share PSD   50.22% PS   22.24% CDU   12.14% PRD   4.91% CDS   4.44% UDP   0.89% PSR   0.58% MDP   0.57% PDC   0.56% Others   1.27% Blank/Invalid   2.18%

Parliamentary seats PSD   59.20% PS   24.00% CDU   12.40% PRD   2.80% CDS   1.60%

Distribution by constituency[]

Results of the 1987 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic
by constituency

Constituency	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	Total S
	PSD		PS		CDU		PRD		CDS
Azores	66.7	4	20.0	1	2.3	-	3.0	-	3.3	-	5
Aveiro	60.4	11	22.9	4	4.4	-	2.7	-	5.3	-	15
Beja	24.5	1	20.3	1	38.7	3	5.7	-	2.0	-	5
Braga	53.4	10	25.9	5	6.1	1	3.3	-	5.9	1	17
Bragança	60.8	3	19.2	1	3.2	-	1.3	-	7.6	-	4
Castelo Branco	52.1	4	22.4	2	7.1	-	6.0	-	4.7	-	6
Coimbra	50.0	6	28.7	4	7.2	1	3.5	-	4.5	-	11
Évora	32.1	2	15.4	-	36.2	2	7.7	-	2.1	-	4
Faro	46.7	5	24.9	3	10.9	1	6.3	-	3.1	-	9
Guarda	60.0	4	21.8	1	3.3	-	2.0	-	6.6	-	5
Leiria	60.8	9	18.7	2	5.9	-	3.0	-	6.0	-	11
Lisbon	45.8	28	21.2	12	16.5	10	6.9	4	3.7	2	56
Madeira	65.5	4	16.2	1	1.9	-	3.3	-	5.2	-	5
Portalegre	37.4	1	25.1	1	20.9	1	6.3	-	3.1	-	3
Porto	50.9	22	26.7	11	9.4	4	4.0	1	4.0	1	39
Santarém	47.9	7	21.7	3	12.6	1	7.3	1	3.6	-	12
Setúbal	32.6	6	17.6	3	32.7	7	8.7	1	1.9	-	17
Viana do Castelo	54.5	5	20.3	1	6.3	-	4.8	-	7.7	-	6
Vila Real	62.5	5	20.3	1	4.1	-	1.4	-	5.0	-	6
Viseu	64.1	8	17.9	2	2.9	-	1.7	-	7.0	-	10
Europe	37.0	1	28.4	1	15.9	-	4.9	-	6.6	-	2
Rest of the World	63.2	2	7.3	-	1.4	-	1.7	-	19.9	-	2
Total	50.2	148	22.2	60	12.1	31	4.9	7	4.4	4	250
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps[]

• 

  Most voted political force by district (Azores and Madeira not shown).

• 

  Most voted political force by municipality.

Notes[]

References[]

Further reading[]

• David B. Goldey, "The Portuguese elections of 1987 and 1991 and the presidential election of 1991." Electoral Studies 11.2 (1992): 171–176.

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