1979 Portuguese legislative election

The Portuguese legislative election of 1979 took place on 2 December. The last election, three and a half years before, in April 1976, was won by the Socialist Party under the lead of Mário Soares, who became the Prime-Minister of the 1st Constitutional government after the revolution.

1979 Portuguese legislative election

2 December 1979
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 125 seats needed for a majority
Registered	7,249,346 10.4%
Turnout	6,007,453 (82.9%) 0.6 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Francisco Sá Carneiro Mário Soares Álvaro Cunhal Party PSD PS PCP Alliance AD APU Leader since 29 April 1979[lower-alpha 1] 19 April 1973 1979 Leader's seat Lisbon[1] Lisbon[2] Lisbon Last election 115 seats, 40.9%^1 107 seats, 34.9% 40 seats, 14.4% Seats won 128 74 47 Seat change 13 33 7 Popular vote 2,719,208 1,642,136 1,129,322 Percentage 45.3% 27.3% 18.8% Swing 4.4 pp 7.6 pp 4.4 pp
Results by district or autonomous region PSD ran alone in the Azores and Madeira.
Prime Minister before election Maria de Lurdes Pintasilgo PS Elected Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro PSD

However, the government suffered several attacks and in December 1977, Soares lost the voting of a confidence resolution because all the opposition, the Democratic and Social Center, the Social Democrats and the Communists united in order to vote against it, and so, the Soares' government fell. Soares would become Prime-Minister again in January 1978, in coalition with the Democratic Social Center, but in July this party would force the end of the government due to disagreements about agrarian reform. In August, Nobre da Costa became Prime-Minister by personal decision of the President of President Ramalho Eanes, after a failed attempt to unite the parties on the Parliament. However, the program of Nobre da Costa's government was never approved and two months later, da Costa was replaced by Mota Pinto who would govern with extreme difficulties for less than one year.

In July 1979, the President finally decided to dissolve the Parliament and call for a new election for December. Mota Pinto was replaced in the period between the dissolution and the election by Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo (the only women to lead a government in Portugal).

The right-wing parties, the Social Democratic, the Democratic and Social Center and the People's Monarchist Party united in the Democratic Alliance (Portuguese: Aliança Democrática or AD) under the lead of Sá Carneiro won the election, receiving 43% of the vote. The Socialists lost more than 30 MPs and the Communists, now allied with the Portuguese Democratic Movement in the United People Alliance achieved their highest total ever, with almost 20% of the voting.

Electoral system

The Assembly of the Republic has 250 members elected to four-year terms. The total number of MPs was reduced to 250 from the previous 263, elected in 1976. 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
• Democratic Alliance (AD), Francisco Sá Carneiro

The leader of the Democratic Alliance, Francisco Sá Carneiro, member of the Social Democratic Party was nominated Prime-Minister.

Campaign period

Party slogans

Party or alliance		Original slogan	English translation	Refs
	AD	« A maioria certa »	"The right majority"	[6]
	PS	« O direito à liberdade »	"The right to freedom"	[7]
	APU	« Para a vitória democrática »	"For the democratic victory"	[8]
	UDP	« O voto certo da mudança »	"The right vote for change"	[9]

National summary of votes and seats

 Summary of the 2 December 1979 Assembly of the Republic elections results

Parties			Votes	%	±	Seats					MPs %/ votes %
						1976	1979	±	%	±
		Democratic Alliance^[A]	2,554,458	42.52	N/A	N/A	121	N/A	48.40	N/A	1.14
		Social Democratic^[B]	141,227	2.35	N/A	73	7	N/A	2.80	N/A	1.19
		Democratic and Social Centre^[B]	23,523	0.39	N/A	42	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
Total Democratic Alliance			2,719,208	45.26	4.4^1	115^1	128	13^1	51.20	7.5^1	1.13
		Socialist	1,642,136	27.33	7.6	107	74	33	29.60	11.1	1.08
		United People Alliance^[C]	1,129,322	18.80	4.4	40	47	7	18.80	3.6	1.00
		People's Democratic Union	130,842	2.18	0.5	1	1	0	0.40	0.0	0.18
		Christian Democratic	72,514	1.21	0.7	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
		Workers' Communist Party	53,268	0.89	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
		UEDS	43,325	0.72	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
		Revolutionary Socialist	36,978	0.62	0.5	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
		Workers Party of Socialist Unity	12,713	0.21	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
		OCMLP	3,433	0.06	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A	0.0
Total valid			5,843,739	97.28	2.0	263	250	13	100.00	0.0	—
Blank ballots			42,863	0.71	—
Invalid ballots			120,851	2.01	2.7
Total (turnout 82.86%)			6,007,453	100.00	0.6
^A Alliance formed by the Social Democratic Party (73 seats), the Democratic and Social Centre (43 seats) and the People's Monarchist Party (5 seats). ^B Social Democratic Party and Democratic and Social Centre electoral list only in Azores and Madeira. ^C Portuguese Communist Party (44 MPs) and Portuguese Democratic Movement (3 MPs) ran in coalition.[10]
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

¹ Democratic Alliance results are compared to the combined totals of the Social Democratic Party, the Democratic and Social Centre and the People's Monarchist Party in the 1976 election.

Vote share AD   42.52% PS   27.33% APU   18.80% PSD   2.35% UDP   2.18% PDC   1.21% PCTP/MRPP   0.89% UEDS   0.72% PSR   0.62% Others   0.66% Blank/Invalid   2.72%

Parliamentary seats AD   48.40% PS   29.60% APU   18.80% PSD   2.80% UDP   0.40%

Distribution by constituency

 Results of the 1979 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic
by constituency

Constituency	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	Total S
	AD		PS		APU		PSD		UDP
Azores			30.0	2	3.1	-	52.0	3	1.7	-	5
Aveiro	56.7	9	28.4	5	7.9	1			1.2	-	15
Beja	19.0	1	22.0	1	50.7	3			1.8	-	5
Braga	51.9	9	30.2	5	10.0	1			1.4	-	15
Bragança	60.7	3	22.2	1	5.8	-			1.9	-	4
Castelo Branco	49.9	4	27.8	2	12.4	-			1.9	-	6
Coimbra	44.8	6	35.1	5	11.2	1			1.3	-	12
EvoraÉvora	26.9	1	16.9	1	48.9	3			1.7	-	5
Faro	34.6	4	34.0	3	20.3	2			3.2	-	9
Guarda	60.6	4	26.3	1	5.4	-			0.9	-	5
Leiria	56.2	7	23.2	3	10.9	1			1.5	-	11
Lisbon	40.0	24	25.8	15	26.0	16			2.8	1	56
Madeira			17.2	1	3.1	-	57.8	4	6.6	-	5
Portalegre	32.1	2	29.8	1	29.4	1			1.7	-	4
Porto	44.5	18	34.8	14	14.5	6			1.9	-	38
Santarém	41.3	6	27.3	3	21.7	3			2.2	-	12
Setúbal	22.3	4	21.4	4	47.0	9			4.0	-	17
Viana do Castelo	54.8	4	24.9	2	9.8	-			0.9	-	6
Vila Real	57.7	4	21.4	2	6.1	-			1.5	-	6
Viseu	64.1	8	21.4	2	5.5	-			1.4	-	10
Europe	38.3	1	33.2	1	13.4	-			5.7	-	2
Rest of the World	77.3	2	5.7	-	3.1	-			0.7	-	2
Total	42.5	121	27.3	74	18.8	47	2.4	7	2.2	1	250
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

• 
  Most voted political force by municipality.

Notes

1. As leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD).

References

1. Diário da Républica, 24 de Dezembro de 1979 - Lista de candidatos eleitos
2. Fundação Mário Soares
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 INTERCALARES DE 1979 – ALIANÇA DEMOCRÁTICA". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.
7. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1979 – PS". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.
8. "ALIANÇA POVO UNIDO (APU) – 1979 / ELEIÇÕES INTERCALARES DE 1979 – APU". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.
9. "UDP – 1979". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.
10. "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