1976 Portuguese legislative election

The Portuguese legislative election of 1976 took place on 25 April, exactly one year after the previous election, and two years after the Carnation Revolution. With a new Constitution approved, the country's main aim was economic recovery and strengthening its democratic institutions.

1976 Portuguese legislative election

25 April 1976
263 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 132 seats needed for a majority
Registered	6,564,667 5.4%
Turnout	5,483,461 (83.5%) 8.2 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Mário Soares Francisco Sá Carneiro Diogo Freitas do Amaral Party PS PPD CDS Leader since 19 April 1973 6 May 1974 19 July 1974 Leader's seat Lisbon[1] Porto[2] Lisbon Last election 116 seats, 37.9% 81 seats, 26.4% 16 seats, 7.6% Seats won 107 73 42 Seat change 9 8 26 Popular vote 1,912,921 1,335,381 876,077 Percentage 34.9% 24.4% 15.9% Swing 3.0 pp 2.0 pp 8.4 pp   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Álvaro Cunhal Acácio Barreiros Party PCP UDP Leader since 31 March 1961 1976 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 30 seats, 12.5% 1 seat, 0.8% Seats won 40 1 Seat change 10 Popular vote 788,830 0.79 Percentage 14.4% 1.7% Swing 1.9 pp 0.9 pp
Results by district or autonomous region.
Prime Minister before election Vasco de Almeida e Costa (interim) Independent Elected Prime Minister Mário Soares PS

The Socialist Party won a plurality of legislative seats, and its leader Mário Soares became the Prime Minister of the 1st Constitutional government on 23 July 1976. The lack of a socialist majority forced his party to form an unexpected coalition with the Democratic and Social Center, a right-wing party. The nature of this coalition, between a socialist party and a conservative party that voted against the new constitution because of its socialist influences, surprised most Portuguese voters and marked the start of the Socialist Party's right-wing turn that would soon be attacked by all the left due to the new government's measures against left-wing reforms following the Carnation Revolution, mainly concerning agrarian reform, in what was called the PS' putting "Socialism in the drawer".[3]

The Social Democratic Party (then known as the Democratic People's Party, PPD) won the second most seats and the Portuguese Communist Party achieved considerable gains that reflected its growing influence, mainly in the south of the country.

Electoral system

The Assembly of the Republic has 263 members elected to four-year terms. The total number of MPs increased to 263 from the 1975 total of 250 MPs. 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 132 (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]

Parties

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

• Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), Álvaro Cunhal
• Socialist Party (PS), Mário Soares
• Democratic People's Party (PPD), Francisco Sá Carneiro
• Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), Freitas do Amaral

Campaign period

Party slogans

Party or alliance		Original slogan	English translation	Refs
	PS	« Queremos e podemos reconstruir o país »	"We want and we can rebuild the country"	[7]
	PPD	« Portugal com Sá Carneiro »	"Portugal with Sá Carneiro"	[8]
	PCP	« Para uma maioria de esquerda »	"For a left-wing majority"	[9]
	CDS	« A resposta é muito simples »	"The answer is very simple"	[10]

National summary of votes and seats

 Summary of the 25 April 1976 Assembly of the Republic elections results

Parties		Votes	%	±	Seats					MPs %/ votes %
					1975	1976	±	%	±
	Socialist	1,912,921	34.89	3.0	116	107	9	40.68	5.7	1.17
	Democratic People's	1,335,381	24.35	2.0	81	73	8	27.76	4.6	1.14
	Democratic and Social Centre	876,007	15.98	8.4	16	42	26	15.97	9.6	1.00
	Communist	788,830	14.39	1.9	30	40	10	15.21	3.2	1.06
	People's Democratic Union	91,690	1.67	0.9	1	1	0	0.38	0.0	0.23
	People's Socialist Front	42,162	0.77	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Portuguese Workers' Communist	36,200	0.66	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
	Movement of Socialist Left	31,332	0.57	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Christian Democratic	29,874	0.54	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
	People's Monarchist	28,320	0.52	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Internationalist Communist League	16,269	0.30	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	PCP(m-l)	15,830	0.29	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
	Worker-Peasant Alliance	15,778	0.29	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist	5,171	0.09	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
Total valid		5,225,765	95.30	2.3	250^[A]	263	13	100.00	0.0	—
Invalid ballots		257,696	4.70	2.3
Total (turnout 83.53%)		5,483,461	100.00	8.2
^A Portuguese Democratic Movement won 5 seats and the Independent Democratic Association of Macau won 1 seat in the 1975 election. Both parties did not contested this election.
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share PS   34.89% PPD   24.35% CDS   15.98% PCP   14.39% UDP   1.67% FSP   0.77% MRPP   0.66% MES   0.57% PDC   0.54% PPM   0.52% Others   0.97% Blank/Invalid   4.70%

Parliamentary seats PS   40.68% PPD   27.76% CDS   15.97% PCP   15.51% UDP   0.38%

Distribution by constituency

 Results of the 1976 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic
by constituency

Constituency	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	Total S
	PS		PPD		CDS		PCP		UDP
Angra do Heroísmo	30.4	1	51.8	1	12.1	-	1.5	-			2
Aveiro	30.8	5	35.2	6	22.5	4	3.7	-	0.9	-	15
Beja	32.0	2	8.2	-	4.2	-	44.0	4	2.2	-	6
Braga	32.3	6	28.6	5	21.2	4	4.2	-	1.0	-	15
Bragança	22.6	1	33.3	2	28.3	2	2.7	-	0.8	-	5
Castelo Branco	36.4	3	22.6	2	19.9	2	6.7	-	1.1	-	7
Coimbra	40.9	6	26.7	4	12.5	1	7.3	1	1.2	-	12
EvoraÉvora	30.3	2	9.2	-	8.0	-	43.2	4	2.6	-	6
Faro	44.6	6	19.3	2	6.8	-	14.5	1	2.6	-	9
Funchal	24.9	1	53.0	4	13.3	1	1.5	-	1.3	-	6
Guarda	25.2	2	25.7	2	32.1	2	2.9	-	1.1	-	6
Horta	34.2	-	57.0	1	4.3	-	1.5	-			1
Leiria	31.1	4	31.2	4	19.4	2	7.3	1	1.0	-	11
Lisbon	38.3	25	16.4	10	13.2	8	21.8	14	2.6	1	58
Ponta Delgada	35.4	1	45.6	2	11.8	-	1.5	-			3
Portalegre	41.9	3	10.1	-	13.9	-	22.0	1	1.0	-	4
Porto	40.7	18	27.0	11	15.7	6	8.4	3	1.5	-	38
Santarém	38.5	6	19.5	3	13.9	2	16.1	2	1.7	-	13
Setúbal	32.2	7	8.4	1	4.4	-	44.4	9	2.8	-	17
Viana do Castelo	25.5	2	32.8	3	23.5	2	6.6	-	0.9	-	7
Vila Real	26.3	2	39.0	4	18.3	1	3.1	-	0.9	-	7
Viseu	23.0	3	32.2	4	31.2	4	2.3	-	0.9	-	11
zEurope	46.1	1	32.2	1	6.9	-	10.1	-	0.8	-	2
zRest of the World	6.3	-	53.2	1	33.7	1	1.4	-	0.4	-	2
Total	34.9	107	24.4	73	16.0	42	14.4	40	1.7	1	263
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

• 
  Most voted political force by municipality.

References

1. Fundação Mário Soares
2. Diário da Républica, 25 de Maio de 1976 - Lista de candidatos eleitos
3. "Mário Soares e o ″socialismo na gaveta″". TSF Rádio Notícias (in Portuguese). 10 January 2017. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
4. "Constitution of the Portuguese Republic" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
5. "Effective threshold in electoral systems". Trinity College, Dublin. Retrieved 2015-10-21.
6. Gallaher, Michael (1992). "Comparing Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Quotas, Thresholds, Paradoxes and Majorities"
7. "Comunicação Política em eleições legislativas em Portugal: uma análise a partir dos cartazes eleitorais (1975-2009)" (PDF). Francisco Teixeira (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.
8. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1983 – PSD". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
9. "Comunicação Política em eleições legislativas em Portugal: uma análise a partir dos cartazes eleitorais (1975-2009)" (PDF). Francisco Teixeira (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.
10. "Comunicação Política em eleições legislativas em Portugal: uma análise a partir dos cartazes eleitorais (1975-2009)" (PDF). Francisco Teixeira (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.

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