1983 Portuguese legislative election

The Portuguese legislative election of 1983 took place on 25 April. The last election, in October 1980 had been won by a right-wing coalition, the Democratic Alliance and Francisco Sá Carneiro had retained office as Prime Minister with an increased majority.

1983 Portuguese legislative election

25 April 1983
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 125 seats needed for a majority
Registered	7,337,064 2.2%
Turnout	5,707,695 (77.8%) 6.1 pp
First party Second party   Leader Mário Soares Carlos Mota Pinto Party PS PSD Leader since 19 April 1973 presumptive Leader's seat Lisbon[1] Coimbra[2] Last election 74 seats, 27.8%^1 82 seats [lower-alpha 1] Seats won 101 75 Seat change 27 7 Popular vote 2,061,309 1,554,804 Percentage 36.1% 27.2% Swing 8.3 pp [lower-alpha 1]   Third party Fourth party   Leader Álvaro Cunhal Lucas Pires Party PCP CDS Alliance APU Leader since 1979 20 February 1983 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 41 seats, 16.8% 46 seats [lower-alpha 1] Seats won 44 30 Seat change 3 16 Popular vote 1,031,609 716,705 Percentage 18.1% 12.6% Swing 1.3 pp [lower-alpha 1]
Results by district or autonomous region.
Prime Minister before election Francisco Pinto Balsemão PSD Elected Prime Minister Mário Soares PS

However, Sá Carneiro, along with other important members of the coalition, died in an aircrash only two months after the election, on 5 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, 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 the year, he 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.

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]

Parties

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

• United People Alliance (APU), Álvaro Cunhal
• Socialist Party (PS), Mário Soares
• Social Democratic Party (PSD), Mota Pinto
• Democratic and Social Center (CDS), Lucas Pires

Mário Soares, leader of the Socialist Party, was nominated Prime Minister.

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."	[6]
	PS	« Juntos vamos conseguir »	"Together we will do it"	[7]
	CDS	« O nosso caminho é Portugal »	"Our path is Portugal"	[8]
	APU	« Vota APU, A solução! »	"Vote APU, The Solution!"	[9]

Candidates' debates

1983 Portuguese legislative election debates
Date	Organisers	Moderator(s)	P  Present    A  Absent invitee  N  Non-inviteee
			PSD Pinto	PS Soares	CDS Pires	APU Cunhal	Refs
23 Mar	Antena 1		P	P	P	P	[10]
31 Mar	RTP1		P	P	P	P	[11]

National summary of votes and seats

 Summary of the 25 April 1983 Assembly of the Republic elections results

Parties		Votes	%	±	Seats					MPs %/ votes %
					1980	1983	±	%	±
	Socialist^[A]	2,061,309	36.11	8.4^1	74^1	101	27^1	40.40	10.8^1	1.12
	Social Democratic^[B]	1,554,804	27.24	N/A	82	75	7	30.00	2.8	1.10
	United People Alliance^[C]	1,031,609	18.07	1.3	41	44	3	17.60	1.2	0.97
	Democratic and Social Centre^[B]	716,705	12.56	N/A	46	30	16	12.00	6.4	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	6	0.00	2.4	0.0
	People's Democratic Union	27,260	0.48	0.9	1	0	1	0.00	0.4	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	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Workers Party of Socialist Unity	19,657	0.34	1.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist	13,327	0.23	0.8	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	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	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Democratic Party of the Atlantic	5,523	0.10	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Communist Party (Reconstructed)^[D]	86	0.00	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
Total valid		5,561,011	97.43	0.3	250	250	0	100.00	0.0	—
Blank ballots		42,494	0.74	0.1
Invalid ballots		104,276	1.83	0.1
Total (turnout 77.79%)		5,707,695	100.00	6.1
^A The Socialist Party contested the 1980 election in a coalition (Republican and Socialist Front). ^B The Social Democratic Party, the Democratic and Social Centre and the People's Monarchist Party contested, together, the 1980 election in a coalition (Democratic Alliance). ^C Portuguese Communist Party (41 MPs) and Portuguese Democratic Movement (3 MPs) ran in coalition.[12] ^D Communist Party (Reconstructed) list only in Europe and Rest of the World.
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições, Mapa oficial. D.R. n.º 121, Suplemento, Série I de 1983-05-26

¹ Socialist Party results are compared to the combined totals of the Republican and Socialist Front in the 1980 election.

Vote share PS   36.11% PSD   27.24% APU   18.07% CDS   12.56% PDC   0.69% Others   2.75% Blank/Invalid   2.57%

Parliamentary seats PS   40.40% PSD   30.00% APU   17.60% CDS   12.00%

Distribution by constituency

 Results of the 1983 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the
Republic 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
EvoraÉvora	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
zEurope	33.6	1	31.2	1	17.1	-	11.1	-	2
zRest of the World	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

1. 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 MP's to parliament.

References

1. Fundação Mário Soares
2. Diário da Républica, 26 de Maio de 1983 - Lista de candidatos eleitos
3. "Constitution of the Portuguese Republic" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
4. "Effective threshold in electoral systems". Trinity College, Dublin. Retrieved 2015-10-21.
5. Gallaher, Michael (1992). "Comparing Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Quotas, Thresholds, Paradoxes and Majorities"
6. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1983 – PSD". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
7. "Evolução da Comunicação Política e Eleitoral em Portugal" (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
8. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1985 – CDS". 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 11 May 2020.
10. "Debate entre líderes partidários na RDP". RTP (in Portuguese). 1983. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
11. "Corpo a corpo esta noite na RTP". Fundação Mário Soares (in Portuguese). 1983. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
12. "Electoral results - Assembly of the Republic". Archived from the original on 2012-07-16. Retrieved 2012-09-02.

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