1983 Portuguese legislative election

1983 Portuguese legislative election

25 April 1983
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 125 seats needed for a majority
Registered	7,337,064 2.2%
Turnout	5,707,695 (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 Coimbra Last election 66 seats, 27.8% 82 seats (AD) Seats won 101 75 Seat change 35 7 Popular vote 2,061,309 1,554,804 Percentage 36.1% 27.2% Swing 8.3 pp   Third party Fourth party   Leader Álvaro Cunhal Francisco Lucas Pires Party PCP CDS Alliance APU Leader since 14 April 1978 20 February 1983 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 41 seats, 16.8% 46 seats (AD) Seats won 44 30 Seat change 3 16 Popular vote 1,031,609 716,705 Percentage 18.1% 12.6% Swing 1.3 pp
Prime Minister before election Francisco Pinto Balsemão PSD Prime Minister after election Mário Soares PS

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

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 4 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. However, Balsemão's governments were very unstable and after the 1982 local elections results, he resigned as Prime Minister. The Social Democratic Party proposed possible names for Prime Minister to President of Portugal António Ramalho Eanes, but the President refused them and decided to call a snap election for April 1983.

The election was won by the Socialist Party with 36 percent, 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 percent, in what was called the "Central Bloc". 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.

Background

Main article: 1980 Camarate air crash

In October 1980, the Democratic Alliance (AD), led by Francisco Sá Carneiro, was reelected with reinforced majority but it was cut short with the death of Sá Carneiro, his partner Snu Abecassis, his Defense minister Adelino Amaro da Costa and his wife, plus other crew members, in a tragic plane crash in Camarate, Loures, shortly after taking off from the main runway of Lisbon Airport. This tragic air crash sparked a series of conspirancy theories, mainly because of Portugal's involvement in the Iran–Iraq War and the supply of weapons to both Iraq and Iran.

Following the death of Sá Carneiro, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, CDS leader, became interim Prime Minister until the election of a new PSD leader. In January 1981, the PSD elected Francisco Pinto Balsemão as leader and he became Prime Minister.

Fall of the government

See also: 1980 Portuguese legislative election § Fall of the government

Pinto Balsemão had a lot of problems in leading the government, as he lacked support from many senior members of his party, like Aníbal Cavaco Silva, former Finance minister under Sá Carneiro, and several ministers also 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.

The Social Democratic Party proposed, to President Ramalho Eanes, a government led by Vítor Crespo, but President Eanes rejects the proposal citing that the political conditions were just too deteriorated, thus he decided to dissolve the Parliament and call an election for April. Shortly after, the AD was dissolved as PSD, CDS and PPM decided to contest by their own the April snap election.

Leadership changes and challenges

CDS 1983 leadership election

After the dissolution of the Democratic Alliance (AD), Diogo Freitas do Amaral resigned from the party's leadership, and a new congress to elect a new leader was called. Two candidates were on the ballot, Francisco Lucas Pires and Luís Barbosa, with Lucas Pires being elected as new party leader.

Ballot: 20 February 1983

Candidate		Votes	%
	Francisco Lucas Pires	WIN
	Luís Barbosa
Turnout
Source:

PSD 1983 nomination selection

Just like CDS, after the collapse of the AD coalition, the then PSD leader Francisco Pinto Balsemão announces he would not run for the leadership of the party. Shortly after, Carlos Mota Pinto is selected by the PSD as the party's candidate for Prime Minister.

Ballot: 27 February 1983

Candidate		Votes	%
	Carlos Mota Pinto		100.0
Turnout
Source:

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.

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 1980 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:

District	Number of MPs	Map
Lisbon	56	16 6 38 6 4 15 10 5 11 6 11 12 56 4 5 17 5 9 5 5 2 2
Porto	38
Setúbal	17
Braga(+1)	16
Aveiro	15
Santarém	12
Leiria and Coimbra(–1)	11
Viseu	10
Faro	9
Castelo Branco, Viana do Castelo and Vila Real	6
Azores, Beja, Évora, Guarda and Madeira	5
Bragança and Portalegre	4
Europe and Outside Europe	2

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
						%	Seats
	PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism	Centre-right	Carlos Mota Pinto	47.6%	82 / 250
	CDS	Democratic and Social Center Centro Democrático e Social	Christian democracy	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%	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."
	PS	« Juntos vamos conseguir »	"Together we will do it"
	CDS	« O nosso caminho é Portugal »	"Our path is Portugal"
	APU	« Vota APU, A solução! »	"Vote APU, The Solution!"

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
31 Mar	RTP1		P	P	P	P

Opinion polling

  Exit poll/Forecast

Date Released	Polling Firm		PS			Others	Lead
25 Apr 1983	Election results	27.2	36.1	12.6	18.1	6.0	8.9
25 Apr 1983	RTP (23:15)	25.4–27.7 69/72	36.0–39.1 98/104	11.5–12.0 27/30	17.2–18.5 42/46	–	10.6 11.4
25 Apr 1983	RTP (20:30)	22.0–25.5 65/72	36.0–38.5 94/102	12.0–14.5 35/40	16.5–19.0 42/46	–	13.0 14.0
Apr 1983	Tempo	24.0	38.0	12.5	17.0	8.5	14.0

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	2,061,309	36.11	8.4	66	101	35	40.40	10.8	1.12
	Social Democratic	1,554,804	27.24	—	82	75	7	30.00	2.8	1.10
	United People Alliance	1,031,609	18.07	1.3	41	44	3	17.60	1.2	0.97
	Democratic and Social Centre	716,705	12.56	—	46	30	16	12.00	6.4	0.96
	Christian Democratic	39,180	0.69	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	People's Monarchist	27,635	0.48	—	6	0	6	0.00	2.4	0.0
	People's Democratic Union	27,260	0.48	0.9	1	0	1	0.00	0.4	0.0
	People's Democratic Union / PSR	25,222	0.44	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Portuguese Workers' Communist	20,995	0.37	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Workers Party of Socialist Unity	19,657	0.34	1.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist	13,327	0.23	0.8	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Socialist Workers League	11,500	0.20	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	OCMLP	6,113	0.11	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Democratic Party of the Atlantic	5,523	0.10	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Communist Party (Reconstructed)	86	0.00	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
Total valid		5,560,925	97.43	0.3	250	250	0	100.00	0.0	—
Blank ballots		42,494	0.74	0.1
Invalid ballots		104,276	1.83	0.1
Total		5,707,695	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		7,337,064	77.79	6.1
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições, Mapa oficial. D.R. n.º 121, Suplemento, Série I de 1983-05-26

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
Évora	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
Europe	33.6	1	31.2	1	17.1	-	11.1	-	2
Outside Europe	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

• 
  Most voted political force by municipality.

Aftermath

Fall of the government

The Central Bloc government had become deeply unpopular by 1984, with the consequences of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout to save public finances and the economy hitting hard on the population. The budget cuts and increasing poverty were creating deep disagreements between PS and PSD, but also within both parties rifts were being formed. In the Social Democrats, these rifts came to a breaking point in February 1985 with party leader Carlos Mota Pinto resigning and announcing he would contest the next leadership ballot. But, Mota Pinto died unexpectedly just days prior to the 1985 PSD congress and Aníbal Cavaco Silva, which was against the Central Bloc, was elected as leader. Shortly after his election as party leader, Cavaco Silva withdraws the PSD support to the Central Bloc, and the government falls. President Ramalho Eanes decides to dissolve Parliament and call a snap election for 6 October 1985.

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