1995 Portuguese legislative election

1995 Portuguese legislative election

1 October 1995
230 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 116 seats needed for a majority
Registered	8,906,608 5.3%
Turnout	5,904,854 (66.3%) 1.5 pp
First party Second party   Leader António Guterres Fernando Nogueira Party PS PSD Leader since 23 February 1992 19 February 1995 Leader's seat Castelo Branco Porto Last election 72 seats, 29.1% 135 seats, 50.6% Seats won 112 88 Seat change 40 47 Popular vote 2,583,755 2,014,589 Percentage 43.8% 34.1% Swing 14.7 pp 16.5 pp   Third party Fourth party   Leader Manuel Monteiro Carlos Carvalhas Party CDS–PP PCP Alliance CDU Leader since 22 March 1992 5 December 1992 Leader's seat Braga Lisbon Last election 5 seats, 4.4% 17 seats, 8.8% Seats won 15 15 Seat change 10 2 Popular vote 534,470 506,157 Percentage 9.1% 8.6% Swing 4.7 pp 0.2 pp
Prime Minister before election Aníbal Cavaco Silva PSD Prime Minister after election António Guterres PS

The 1995 Portuguese legislative election took place on 1 October. The election renewed all 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

The incumbent prime minister, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, decided not to run for a fourth consecutive term and the Social Democratic Party, choose Fernando Nogueira, one of Cavaco Silva's deputies, as leader and candidate for prime minister in a highly contested and bitter party congress in February 1995. But, the PSD was weakened by the end of the 10-year cycle of governments led by Cavaco Silva, amid scandals and the 1994 25 April bridge riots that shocked the country. During the campaign, Cavaco Silva toyed with the idea of running for the 1996 Presidential elections, which he ultimately did.

The PS easily won the elections with 44 percent of the votes, against the 34 percent of the PSD, achieving their first general election victory since 1983 and after a decade in opposition, but missed the absolute majority by 4 MPs. António Guterres, elected as PS leader three years before, became prime minister. The Social Democratic Party suffered a heavy defeat, losing almost 50 seats and 17 percentage points. This election marked the growing bi-polarization of the Portuguese political map. The two minor parties, the People's Party and the Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU) achieved only 15 MPs each, and for the first time ever the CDU failed to win a single district.

Although turnout, in percentage point, was lower than the previous election in 1991, almost 6 million voters cast a ballot on election day, the highest figure since 1980. Voter turnout stood at 66.3 percent, the lowest until then.

Background

Leadership changes and challenges

The four main parties all changed their leaders during the 1991–1995 legislature.

PS 1992 leadership election

The 1991 general election Socialist defeat, and the scale of it, surprised the party, with António Guterres actually saying he "was in shock". Then PS leader, Jorge Sampaio, faced a lot of criticisms about his strategy but, announced he was running for reelection as party leader. He would face António Guterres and Álvaro Beleza. A party leadership congress was called for February 1992, but, during the days prior to the start of the congress, Sampaio withdrew from the race and Guterres was easily elected as party leader: The results were the following:

Ballot: 21 February 1992

Candidate		Votes	%
	António Guterres		88.0
	Álvaro Beleza		12.0
	Jorge Sampaio	withdrew
Turnout
Source:

CDS–PP 1992 leadership election

Then CDS leader, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, resigned from the leadership following the party's poor results in the 1991 general elections. A party congress to elect a new leader was called for late March 1992 and 3 candidates were on the ballot: Manuel Monteiro, Basílio Horta, the party's candidate for the 1991 Presidential election and António Lobo Xavier. Manuel Monteiro was easily elected as leader:

Ballot: 21 March 1992

Candidate		Votes	%
	Manuel Monteiro	WIN
	Basílio Horta
	António Lobo Xavier
Turnout
Source:

PCP 1992 leadership election

The historic Portuguese Communist Party leader, Álvaro Cunhal, announced he would step down from the leadership of the party in late 1992. Carlos Carvalhas, the party's deputy leader was chosen as Cunhal's successor and was unanimously elected, but Cunhal remained a powerful figure within the party as a new body, the National Council, was created and Cunhal would lead it.

Ballot: 5 December 1992

Candidate		Votes	%
	Carlos Carvalhas		100.0
Turnout
Source:

PSD 1995 leadership election

After serving almost 10 years as prime minister, there were doubts if Cavaco Silva would run for another term, thus, creating a big "taboo" in Portuguese politics. Cavaco promised a decision during the spring of 1995, but in January 1995, he announced he would not run for another term as prime minister and PSD leader. This led the PSD to call a congress to elect a new leader. The congress become iconic for how tense and stormy it was, with strong accusations between several party members. Three candidates announced a run for the leadership: Fernando Nogueira, former defense minister, José Manuel Durão Barroso, foreign affairs minister, and Pedro Santana Lopes, former culture secretary. Santana Lopes withdrew before the ballot, and Fernando Nogueira narrowly defeated Durão Barroso by just 33 votes. The results were the following:

Ballot: 19 February 1995

Candidate		Votes	%
	Fernando Nogueira	532	51.6
	José Manuel Durão Barroso	499	48.4
	Pedro Santana Lopes	withdrew
Turnout		1,031
Source:

Electoral system

The Assembly of the Republic has 230 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 116 (absolute majority) for both the Government's Programme to be rejected or for a motion of no confidence to be approved.

The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude. 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.

For these elections, and compared with the 1991 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:

District	Number of MPs	Map
Lisbon	50	16 6 37 5 4 14 9 4 10 5 10 10 50 3 4 17 4 8 5 5 2 2
Porto	37
Setúbal( 1)	17
Braga	16
Aveiro	14
Leiria, Santarém and Coimbra	10
Viseu	9
Faro	8
Viana do Castelo	6
Azores, Castelo Branco, Madeira and Vila Real(–1)	5
Beja, Bragança, Évora and Guarda	4
Portalegre	3
Europe and Outside Europe	2

Parties

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 6th legislature (1991–1995) and that also partook in the election:

Name			Ideology	Political position	Leader	1991 result
						%	Seats
	PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism Classical liberalism	Centre-right	Fernando Nogueira	50.6%	135 / 230
	PS	Socialist Party Partido Socialista	Social democracy Third Way	Centre-left	António Guterres	29.1%	72 / 230
	PCP	Portuguese Communist Party Partido Comunista Português	Communism Marxism–Leninism	Far-left	Carlos Carvalhas	8.8%	15 / 230
	PEV	Ecologist Party "The Greens" Partido Ecologista "Os Verdes"	Eco-socialism Green politics	Left-wing	Isabel Castro		2 / 230
	CDS-PP	CDS – People's Party Centro Democrático e Social – Partido Popular	Christian democracy National conservatism	Centre-right to right-wing	Manuel Monteiro	4.4%	5 / 230
	PSN	National Solidarity Party Partido da Solidariedade Nacional	Humanism Pensioners' rights	Centre	Carlos Bastos	1.7%	1 / 230

Campaign period

Party slogans

Party or alliance		Original slogan	English translation	Refs
	PSD	« Mais e melhor para Portugal »	"More and better for Portugal"
	PS	« A nova maioria »	"The new majority."
	CDU	« Vamos dar a volta a isto »	"Let's turn this around"
	CDS–PP	« Vamos dar lugar a Portugal »	"Let's make way for Portugal"

Candidates' debates

The 1995 debates, between PSD leader Fernando Nogueira and PS leader António Guterres, were the first general election debates since the 1985 elections.

1995 Portuguese legislative election debates
Date	Organisers	Moderator(s)	P  Present    A  Absent invitee  N  Non-invitee
			PSD Nogueira	PS Guterres	Refs
6 Sep	RTP1	José Eduardo Moniz Maria Elisa Domingues	P	P
13 Sep	SIC	Miguel Sousa Tavares Margarida Marante	P	P

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. Included is also the result of the Portuguese general elections in 1991 and 1995 for reference.

Note, until 2000, the publication of opinion polls in the last week of the campaign was forbidden.

  Poll conducted after legal ban on opinion polls
  Exit poll

Date Released	Polling Firm		PS			Others	Lead
1 Oct 1995	Leg. election	34.1 88	43.8 112	8.6 15	9.1 15	4.4 0	9.7
1 Oct 1995	RTP/Euroteste	35.0–39.0 93	40.0–45.0 107	7.0–9.0 16	7.0–9.0 14	—	5.5
1 Oct 1995	SIC/Metris	34.5	42.2	9.0	9.2	5.1	7.7
1 Oct 1995	TVI/Universidade Católica	35.5	41.0	8.0	10.0	5.5	5.5
29 Sep 1995	Norma	40.3	35.2	9.7	9.3	5.5	5.1
23 Sep 1995	Metris	32.0	42.0	10.0	8.0	8.0	10.0
23 Sep 1995	Euroteste	35.0	39.0	9.0	10.0	7.0	4.0
23 Sep 1995	Euroexpansão	32.7	44.5	11.5	6.9	4.4	11.8
23 Sep 1995	Universidade Católica	35.0	40.0	9.0	10.0	6.0	5.0
22 Sep 1995	IPSOS	35.0	41.0	9.0	9.0	6.0	6.0
21 Sep 1995	Marktest	33.0	42.0	10.0	9.0	6.0	9.0
16 Sep 1995	Compta	39.0	40.0	12.0	8.0	1.0	1.0
16 Sep 1995	Euroexpansão	33.7	41.8	8.8	9.1	6.6	8.1
9 Sep 1995	Euroexpansão	31.8	41.5	11.5	8.7	6.5	9.7
28 Jul 1995	Compta RH	35.8	43.6	11.7	7.0	1.8	7.8
14 Jul 1995	Compta RH	36.8	44.4	9.9	6.5	2.4	7.6
30 Jun 1995	Compta RH	34.8	45.4	8.6	8.1	3.1	10.6
9 Jun 1995	Compta RH	31.2	45.6	9.7	8.6	4.9	14.4
1 May 1995	Euroteste	40.5	42.5	—	—	17.0	2.0
12 Jun 1994	EP elections	34.4	34.9	11.2	12.5	7.0	0.5
12 Dec 1993	Local elections	33.7	40.2	12.8	8.4	4.9	6.5
24 Sep 1993	Euroteste	44.5	34.8	10.0	8.7	2.0	9.7
29 May 1993	Euroexpansão	33.8	34.6	—	—	31.6	0.8
29 May 1993	Euroteste	45.5	34.3	—	—	20.2	11.2
6 Oct 1991	Leg. election	50.6 135	29.1 72	8.8 17	4.4 5	7.1 1	21.5

National summary of votes and seats

Summary of the 1 October 1995 Assembly of the Republic elections results

Parties		Votes	%	±	MPs					MPs %/ votes %
					1991	1995	±	%	±
	Socialist	2,583,755	43.76	14.7	72	112	40	48.70	17.4	1.11
	Social Democratic	2,014,589	34.12	16.5	135	88	47	38.26	20.4	1.12
	People's	534,470	9.05	4.7	5	15	10	6.52	4.3	0.72
	Democratic Unity Coalition	506,157	8.57	0.2	17	15	2	6.52	0.9	0.76
	Portuguese Workers' Communist	41,137	0.70	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist	37,638	0.64	0.5	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	People's Democratic Union	33,876	0.57	0.5	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	National Solidarity	12,613	0.21	1.5	1	0	1	0.00	0.4	0.0
	Party of the Folk	8,279	0.14	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Earth	8,235	0.14	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Earth / People's Monarchist	5,932	0.10	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Unity Movement for Workers	2,544	0.04	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Democratic Party of the Atlantic	2,536	0.04	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
Total valid		5,791,761	98.08	0.0	230	230	0	100.00	0.0	—
Blank ballots		45,793	0.78	0.0
Invalid ballots		67,300	1.14	0.0
Total		5,904,854	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		8,906,608	66.30	1.5
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share PS   43.76% PSD   34.12% CDS-PP   9.05% CDU   8.57% PCTP/MRPP   0.70% PSR   0.64% UDP   0.57% Others   0.67% Blank/Invalid   1.92%

Parliamentary seats PS   48.70% PSD   38.26% CDS-PP   6.52% CDU   6.52%

Distribution by constituency

Results of the 1995 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the
Republic by constituency

Constituency	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	Total S
	PS		PSD		CDS–PP		CDU
Azores	37.6	2	47.8	3	9.4	-	1.8	-	5
Aveiro	40.2	6	41.2	6	12.6	2	2.7	-	14
Beja	45.8	2	15.7	1	3.6	-	29.2	1	4
Braga	42.9	8	38.2	7	10.7	1	4.5	-	16
Bragança	40.3	2	44.8	2	9.4	-	1.9	-	4
Castelo Branco	53.2	3	32.1	2	7.2	-	5.3	-	5
Coimbra	49.1	6	34.5	4	7.1	-	5.1	-	10
Évora	42.6	2	20.2	1	5.2	-	26.9	1	4
Faro	49.6	5	29.2	3	8.3	-	7.8	-	8
Guarda	43.7	2	39.9	2	9.9	-	2.3	-	4
Leiria	36.7	4	43.3	5	11.4	1	4.5	-	10
Lisbon	44.3	24	29.0	15	9.4	5	12.0	6	50
Madeira	32.0	2	46.1	3	12.9	-	1.3	-	5
Portalegre	50.5	2	23.4	1	6.3	-	14.0	-	3
Porto	46.7	18	36.4	14	7.8	3	6.0	2	37
Santarém	45.8	5	31.0	3	8.7	1	9.5	1	10
Setúbal	44.9	9	18.4	3	7.2	1	23.8	4	17
Viana do Castelo	38.8	3	42.1	3	11.3	-	4.6	-	6
Vila Real	40.0	2	46.0	3	7.8	-	1.9	-	5
Viseu	38.4	4	44.3	4	11.5	1	1.8	-	9
Europe	35.1	1	33.8	1	4.4	-	6.4	-	2
Outside Europe	12.8	-	69.3	2	3.8	-	1.2	-	2
Total	43.8	112	34.1	88	9.1	15	8.6	15	230
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

• 
  Most voted political force by municipality.

External links

• Comissão Nacional de Eleições Archived 2005-04-08 at the Wayback Machine
• Centro de Estudos do Pensamento Político

See also

• Politics of Portugal
• List of political parties in Portugal
• Elections in Portugal