Portuguese legislative election, 1976

Portuguese legislative election, 1976

25 April 1976
263 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 132 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party   Leader Mário Soares Francisco Sá Carneiro Party PS PSD Leader since 19 April 1973 6 May 1974 Leader's seat Lisbon Porto Last election 116 seats, 37.9% 81 seats, 26.4% Seats won 107 73 Seat change 9 8 Popular vote 1,912,921 1,335,381 Percentage 34.9% 24.4% Swing 3.0% 2.0%
Prime Minister before election Vasco de Almeida e Costa (interim) Independent Elected Prime Minister Soares PS

Portugal

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Portugal

The Portuguese legislative election of 1976 took place on 25 April, exactly one year after the previous election, and two years after the Carnation Revolution. With a new Constitution approved, the country's main aim was the economical recovery and the strengthen of the democratic conquests.

The election was won again by the Socialist Party and Mário Soares, its leader, became the Prime-Minister of the 1st Constitutional government on 23 July. The lack of a socialist majority forced this party to form an unexpected coalition with the Democratic and Social Center, the party on the right end of the political spectrum at the time. The nature of such coalition, between a party that defended the socialist way to the country and another that voted against the constitution because of its socialist influences surprised most of the Portuguese voters and marked the start of the right-wing turn of the Socialist Party that would soon be attacked by all the left due to the new government measures against the left-wing conquests of the revolution, mainly the agrarian reform.

The Social Democratic Party was the second most voted party and the Portuguese Communist Party achieved a relevant increase in the voting, showing its growing influence, mainly in the south of the country.

Parties

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

• Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), Álvaro Cunhal
• Socialist Party (PS), Mário Soares
• Social Democratic Party (PSD), Francisco Sá Carneiro
• Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), Freitas do Amaral

National summary of votes and seats

 Summary of the 25 April 1976 Assembly of the Republic elections results

Parties		Votes	%	±	Seats
					1975	1976	±	%	±
	Socialist	1,912,921	34.89	3.0	116	107	9	40.68	5.7
	Social Democratic	1,335,381	24.35	2.0	81	73	8	27.76	4.6
	Democratic and Social Centre	876,077	15.98	8.4	16	42	26	15.97	9.6
	Portuguese Communist Party	788,830	14.39	1.9	30	40	10	15.21	3.2
	People's Democratic Union	91,690	1.67	0.9	1	1	0	0.38	0.0
	People's Socialist Front	42,162	0.77	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Workers' Communist Party	36,200	0.66	—	—	0	—	0.00	—
	Movement of Socialist Left	31,332	0.57	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Christian Democratic Party	29,874	0.54	—	—	0	—	0.00	—
	People's Monarchist Party	28,320	0.52	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Internationalist Communist League	16,269	0.30	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	PCP(m-l)	15,830	0.29	—	—	0	—	0.00	—
	Worker-Peasant Alliance	15,778	0.29	—	—	0	—	0.00	—
	Revolutionary Socialist Party	5,171	0.09	—	—	0	—	0.00	—
Total valid		5,225,835	95.30	2.3	250	263	13	100.00	0.0
Invalid ballots		257,696	4.70	2.3
Total (turnout 83.53%)		5,483,461	100.00	8.2
A Portuguese Democratic Movement won 5 seats and the Independent Democratic Association of Macau won 1 seat in the 1975 election. Both parties did not contested this election.
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share
PS			34.89%
PSD			24.35%
CDS			15.98%
PCP			14.39%
UDP			1.67%
FSP			0.77%
Others/Invalides			7.96%

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