1985 Portuguese legislative election

The Portuguese legislative election of 1985 took place on 6 October. In June of the same year, the former Prime-Minister, Mário Soares, had 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.

1985 Portuguese legislative election

6 October 1985
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 125 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   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   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 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.

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]

Parties

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

• United People Alliance (APU), Álvaro Cunhal
• Socialist Party (PS), Almeida Santos
• Democratic Renewal Party (PRD), Hermínio Martinho
• Social Democratic Party (PSD), Cavaco Silva
• Democratic and Social Center (CDS), Lucas Pires

Aníbal Cavaco Silva, leader of the Social Democratic Party, was nominated Prime Minister for the first time.

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."	[6]
	PSD	« Retomar a esperança »	"Resuming hope"	[7]
	APU	« Vitória da APU para salvar o país »	"Victory for APU to save the country"	[8]
	CDS	« Confiança, razão, força para Portugal »	"Trust, reason, strength for Portugal"	[9]
	PRD	« Mais Portugal »	"More Portugal"	[10]

Candidates' debates

1985 Portuguese legislative election debates
Date	Organisers	Moderator(s)	P  Present    A  Absent invitee  N  Non-inviteee
			PS Santos	PSD Cavaco	APU Cunhal	CDS Pires	Refs
3 Sep	RTP1		P	A[lower-alpha 1]	P	P	[11]
5 Sep	RTP1		N	A[lower-alpha 2]	P	P	[12]
10 Sep	RTP1		P	P	N	P	[13]
12 Sep	RTP1		P	P	P	N	[13]
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

See also: Exit poll and Opinion poll

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

Date Released	Polling Firm	PS	PSD	APU	CDS	PRD	Others	Lead
6 Oct 1985	Leg. Election	20.8 57 seats	29.9 88 seats	15.5 38 seats	10.0 22 seats	17.9 45 seats	5.9 0 seats	9.1
6 Oct (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 (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	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
Exit polls
4 Oct	Expresso	28.0–32.0	27.0–31.0	15.0–17.0	9.0–12.0	8.0–11.0	–	1.0
1985
25 Apr 1983	Leg. Election	36.1 101 seats	27.2 75 seats	18.1 44 seats	12.6 30 seats	Did not exist	6.0 0 seats	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 (turnout 74.16%)		5,798,929	100.00	3.6
^A Portuguese Communist Party (35 MPs) and Portuguese Democratic Movement (3 MPs) ran in coalition.[14]
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
EvoraÉvora	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
zEurope	24.3	1	24.2	1	7.1	-	18.8	-	17.3	-	2
zRest 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

1. Aníbal Cavaco Silva, PSD leader, refused to participate in the debate.
2. Aníbal Cavaco Silva, PSD leader, refused to participate in the debate, being replaced by Eurico de Melo, however, the latter was forbidden from participating.Fundação Mário Soares 1985

References

1. Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
2. Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
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 1985 – PS". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
7. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1985 – PSD". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
8. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1985 – APU". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
9. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1985 – CDS". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
10. "Evolução da Comunicação Política e Eleitoral em Portugal" (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
11. "Líderes partidários em confronto na TV". Fundação Mário Soares (in Portuguese). 1985. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
12. "Álvaro Cunhal/Lucas Pires esta noite na RTP". Fundação Mário Soares (in Portuguese). 1985. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
13. "Eleições ganham-se na TV?". Fundação Mário Soares (in Portuguese). 1985. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
14. Electoral results - Assembly of the Republic

Sources

• Fundação Mário Soares (1985). "Eurico de Melo parte loiça nos estúdios de televisão" (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

External links

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