1983 Portuguese legislative election

The Portuguese legislative election of 1983 took place on 25 April. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

1983 Portuguese legislative election
25 April 1983
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly
125 seats needed for a majority
Registered7,337,064 2.2%
Turnout5,707,695 (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]
Prime Minister before election

Francisco Pinto Balsemão
PSD

 Elected Prime Minister

Mário Soares
PS

The last election, in October 1980 had been won by a right-wing coalition, the Democratic Alliance (AD) and Francisco Sá Carneiro had retained office as Prime Minister with an increased majority.

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 1982, 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 1982, and also influenced by the AD's bad results in the 1982 local elections, Balsemão himself 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. Shortly after, the AD was dissolved as PSD, CDS and PPM decided to run alone.

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]

For these elections, and compared with the 1980 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:[6]

DistrictNumber of MPs
Lisbon56
Porto38
Setúbal17
Braga16 (+1)
Aveiro15
Santarém12
Leiria11
Coimbra11 (-1)
Viseu10
Faro9
Castelo Branco6
Viana do Castelo6
Vila Real6
Madeira5
Azores5
Beja5
Évora5
Guarda5
Bragança4
Portalegre4
Europe2
Outside Europe2

Parties

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 2nd legislature (1980-1983) and that also contested the elections:

Name Ideology Political position Leader 1980 result[7]
Votes (%) Seats
PPD/PSD Social Democratic Party
Partido Social Democrata		 Portuguese social democracy Centre Carlos Mota Pinto 47.6%
82 / 250
CDS Democratic and Social Center
Centro Democrático e Social		 Christian democracy
Neoliberalism		 Centre-right
to right-wing		 Francisco Lucas Pires
46 / 250
PPM People's Monarchist Party
Partido Popular Monárquico		 Monarchism
Green conservatism		 Right-wing Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles
6 / 250
PS Socialist Party
Partido Socialista		 Social democracy Centre-left Mário Soares 27.8%1
66 / 250
UEDS Left-wing Union for the Socialist Democracy
União da Esquerda para a Democracia Socialista		 Democratic Socialism
Workers' self-management		 Left-wing António Lopes Cardoso
4 / 250
ASDI Independent Social-Democratic Action
Acção Social Democrata Independente		 Democratic Socialism
Social democracy		 Centre-left António de Sousa Franco
4 / 250
PCP Portuguese Communist Party
Partido Comunista Português		 Communism
Marxism–Leninism		 Far-left Álvaro Cunhal 16.8%
39 / 250
MDP/CDE Portuguese Democratic Movement
Movimento Democrático Português		 Left-wing nationalism
Democratic socialism		 Left-wing José Manuel Tengarrinha
2 / 250
UDP Popular Democratic Union
União Democrática Popular		 Marxism
Socialism		 Left-wing Mário Tomé 1.4%
1 / 250

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." [8]
PS « Juntos vamos conseguir » "Together we will do it" [9]
CDS « O nosso caminho é Portugal » "Our path is Portugal" [10]
APU « Vota APU, A solução! » "Vote APU, The Solution!" [11]

Candidates' debates
1983 Portuguese legislative election debates
Date Organisers Moderator(s)     P  Present    A  Absent invitee  N  Non-invitee 
PSD
Pinto		 PS
Soares		 CDS
Pires		 APU
Cunhal		 Refs
23 Mar Antena 1 P P P P [12]
31 Mar RTP1 P P P P [13]

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] 2,061,30936.118.4174110127140.4010.811.12
Social Democratic[B] 1,554,80427.24N/A8275730.002.81.10
United People Alliance[C] 1,031,60918.071.34144317.601.20.97
Democratic and Social Centre[B] 716,70512.56N/A46301612.006.40.96
Christian Democratic 39,1800.69N/AN/A0N/A0.00N/A0.0
People's Monarchist[B] 27,6350.48N/A6060.002.40.0
People's Democratic Union 27,2600.480.91010.000.40.0
People's Democratic Union / PSR 25,2220.44N/AN/A0N/A0.00N/A0.0
Portuguese Workers' Communist 20,9950.370.20000.000.00.0
Workers Party of Socialist Unity 19,6570.341.10000.000.00.0
Revolutionary Socialist 13,3270.230.80000.000.00.0
Socialist Workers League 11,5000.20N/AN/A0N/A0.00N/A0.0
OCMLP 6,1130.110.00000.000.00.0
Democratic Party of the Atlantic 5,5230.100.00000.000.00.0
Communist Party (Reconstructed)[D] 860.00N/AN/A0N/A0.00N/A0.0
Total valid 5,561,011 97.43 0.3 250 250 0 100.00 0.0 —
Blank ballots 42,4940.740.1
Invalid ballots 104,2761.830.1
Total 5,707,695 100.00
Registered voters/turnout 7,337,06477.796.1
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.[14]
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

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. "Eleição da Assembleia da República de 25 de Abril de 1983". CNE - Comissão Nacional de Eleições - Eleição da Assembleia da República de 25 de Abril de 1983. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
  7. Composição dos Grupos Parlamentares/Partidos
  8. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1983 – PSD". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  9. "Evolução da Comunicação Política e Eleitoral em Portugal" (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  10. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1985 – CDS". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  11. "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.
  12. "Debate entre líderes partidários na RDP". RTP (in Portuguese). 1983. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  13. "Corpo a corpo esta noite na RTP". Fundação Mário Soares (in Portuguese). 1983. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  14. "Electoral results - Assembly of the Republic". Archived from the original on 2012-07-16. Retrieved 2012-09-02.

See also
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