2022 Portuguese legislative election

Next Portuguese legislative election

On or before 8 October 2023
230 seats in the Assembly of the Republic 116 seats needed for a majority
Leader António Costa Rui Rio Catarina Martins Party PS PSD Left Bloc Leader since 28 September 2014 18 February 2018 30 November 2014 Leader's seat Lisbon Porto Porto Last election 108 seats, 36.4% 79 seats, 27.8% 19 seats, 9.5% Seats needed 8 37 97   Leader Jerónimo de Sousa TBD André Silva Party PCP CDS–PP PAN Alliance CDU Leader since 27 November 2004 26 October 2014 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 12 seats, 6.3% 5 seats, 4.2% 3 seats, 3.3% Seats needed 104 111 113   Leader André Ventura Carlos Guimarães Pinto None Party CH IL LIVRE Leader since 9 April 2019 13 October 2018 11 August 2019 Leader's seat Lisbon Porto Lisbon Last election 1 seat, 1.3% 1 seat, 1.3% 1 seat, 1.1% Seats needed 115 115 115
Incumbent Prime Minister António Costa PS

The Next Portuguese legislative election will take place on or before October 8, 2023 to elect members of the Assembly of the Republic to the 15h Legislature of Portugal. All 230 seats to the Assembly of the Republic will be at stake.

Background

Politics of Portugal

Main article: Politics of Portugal

The President of Portugal has the power to dissolve the Assembly of the Republic by their own will. Unlike in other countries, the President can refuse to dissolve the parliament at the request of the Prime Minister or the Assembly of the Republic and all the parties represented in Parliament. If the Prime Minister resigns, the President must appoint a new Prime Minister after listening to all the parties represented in Parliament and then the government programme must be subject to discussion by the Assembly of the Republic, whose members of parliament may present a motion to reject the upcoming government.

Date

According to the Portuguese Constitution, an election must be called between 14 September and 14 October of the year that the legislature ends. The election is called by the President of Portugal but is not called at the request of the Prime Minister; however, the President must listen to all of the parties represented in Parliament and the election day must be announced at least 60 days before the election. If an election is called during an ongoing legislature (dissolution of parliament) it must be held at least in 55 days. Election day is the same in all multi-seats constituencies, and should fall on a Sunday or national holiday. The next legislative election must, therefore, take place no later than 8 October 2023.

Electoral system

The Parliament of the Portuguese Republic consists of a single chamber, the Assembly of the Republic, composed of 230 members directly elected by universal adult suffrage for a maximum term of four years. Assembly members represent the entire country, rather than the constituencies in which they were elected. 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.

Each one of Portugal's eighteen administrative districts, as well as each one of the country's two autonomous regions - the Azores and Madeira - is an electoral constituency. Portuguese voters residing outside the national territory are grouped into two electoral constituencies - Europe and the rest of the world - each one of which elects two Assembly members. The remaining 226 seats are allocated among the national territory constituencies in proportion to their number of registered electors.

Political parties and party coalitions may present lists of candidates. The lists are closed, so electors may not choose individual candidates in or alter the order of such lists. Electors cast a ballot for a single list. The seats in each constituency are apportioned according to the largest average method of proportional representation (PR), conceived by the Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt in 1899. Although there is no statutory threshold for participation in the allocation of Assembly seats, the application of the D'Hondt method introduces a de facto threshold at the constituency level. (for example, with 21 lists running, in the foreign constituencies the real threshold would be much more than 4.5%).

In the 2019 legislative elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:

District	Number of MPs	Map
Lisbon	48
Porto	40
Braga	19
Setúbal	18
Aveiro	16
Leiria	10
Coimbra, Faro and Santarém	9
Viseu	8
Madeira and Viana do Castelo	6
Azores and Vila Real	5
Castelo Branco	4
Beja, Bragança, Évora and Guarda	3
Portalegre, Europe and Outside Europe	2

Parties

The table below lists parties currently represented in the Assembly of the Republic.

Name			Ideology	Political position	Leader	2019 result
						Votes (%)	Seats
style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color;"|	PS	Socialist Party Partido Socialista	Social democracy	Centre-left	António Costa	36.4%	108 / 230
style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color;"|	PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism Classical liberalism	Centre to centre-right	Rui Rio	27.8%	79 / 230
style="background:Template:Left Bloc/meta/color;"|	BE	Left Bloc Bloco de Esquerda	Democratic socialism Anti-capitalism	Left-wing	Catarina Martins	9.5%	19 / 230
	PCP	Portuguese Communist Party Partido Comunista Português	Communism Marxism–Leninism	Far-left	Jerónimo de Sousa	6.3%	10 / 230
style="background:Template:Ecologist Party "The Greens"/meta/color;"|	PEV	Ecologist Party "The Greens" Partido Ecologista "Os Verdes"	Eco-socialism Green politics	Left-wing	Heloísa Apolónia		2 / 230
style="background:Template:CDS – People's Party/meta/color;"|	CDS-PP	CDS – People's Party Centro Democrático e Social – Partido Popular	Christian democracy Conservatism	Centre-right to right-wing	TBD	4.2%	5 / 230
	PAN	People-Animals-Nature Pessoas-Animais-Natureza	Animal welfare Environmentalism	Centre-left	André Lourenço e Silva	3.3%	4 / 230
	CH	Enough! Chega!	Portuguese nationalism Right-wing populism	Right-wing to far-right	André Ventura	1.3%	1 / 230
style="background:Template:Liberal Initiative/meta/color;"|	IL	Liberal Initiative Iniciativa Liberal	Classical Liberalism Social Liberalism	Centre-right	Carlos Guimarães Pinto	1.3%	1 / 230
	L	LIVRE LIVRE	Eco-socialism Pro-Europeanism	Centre-left to left-wing	Collective leadership	1.1%	1 / 230

Opinion polling

Main article: Opinion polling for the Next Portuguese legislative election

See also

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

External links

• Marktest Opinion Poll Tracker
• Official results site, Portuguese Justice Ministry
• Portuguese Electoral Commission
• ERC - Official publication of polls
• Average of polls and seat simulator