1980 Portuguese legislative election

The 1980 Portuguese legislative election took place on 5 October. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

1980 Portuguese legislative election
5 October 1980
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly
125 seats needed for a majority
Registered7,179,023 Decrease1.0%
Turnout6,026,395 (83.9%)
Increase1.0 pp
  First party Second party Third party
 
Francisco Sá Carneiro.jpg
Leader Francisco Sá Carneiro Mário Soares Álvaro Cunhal
Party PSD PS PCP
Alliance AD FRS APU
Leader since 2 July 1978[lower-alpha 1] 19 April 1973[lower-alpha 2] 1979
Leader's seat Lisbon[1] Lisbon[2] Lisbon
Last election 128 seats, 45.3% 74 seats, 27.3%[lower-alpha 3] 47 seats, 18.8%
Seats won 134 74 41
Seat change Increase 6 Steady 0 Decrease 6
Popular vote 2,868,076 1,673,279 1,009,505
Percentage 47.6% 27.8% 16.8%
Swing Increase 2.3 pp Increase 0.5 pp Decrease 2.0 pp
Prime Minister before election

Francisco Sá Carneiro
PSD

 Prime Minister after election

Francisco Sá Carneiro
PSD

In January 1980, the Democratic Alliance, which had won the previous election, on 2 December 1979, entered office with Francisco Sá Carneiro leading the government. However, this election was an extraordinary election, and so, in 1980, another election was held.

The Democratic Alliance (AD) won, again, and increased the majority they had achieved 10 months before, in December 1979. The AD won almost 48% of the votes and gathered 134 seats, six more.[3] The Socialist Party (PS), now leading a broad coalition called Republican and Socialist Front, got basically the same vote share and seats as in 1979. The Communist led alliance, United People Alliance (APU) lost some ground, gathering almost 17% of the votes, 2% lower than 10 months earlier.

Turnout was one the highest ever, almost 84%, and in terms of ballots cast, the more than 6 million votes cast are still, as of 2022, a record in Portuguese elections.

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.[4]

The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude.[5] 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.[6]

For these elections, and compared with the 1979 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:[7]

DistrictNumber of MPsMap
Lisbon56
Porto38
Setúbal17
Aveiro and Braga15
Santarém and Coimbra12
Leiria11
Viseu10
Faro9
Castelo Branco, Viana do Castelo and Vila Real6
Azores, Beja, Évora, Guarda and Madeira5
Bragança and Portalegre4
Europe and Outside Europe2

Parties

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the second half of the 1st legislature (1976–1980), as the 1979 election was a national by-election, and that also contested the elections:

Name Ideology Political position Leader 1979 result[8]
Votes (%) Seats
PPD/PSD Social Democratic Party
Partido Social Democrata		 Conservative liberalism Centre-right Francisco Sá Carneiro 45.3%[lower-alpha 4]
80 / 250
CDS Democratic and Social Center
Centro Democrático e Social		 Christian democracy Centre-right
to right-wing		 Diogo Freitas do Amaral
43 / 250
PPM People's Monarchist Party
Partido Popular Monárquico		 Monarchism
Green conservatism		 Right-wing Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles
5 / 250
PS Socialist Party
Partido Socialista		 Social democracy Centre-left Mário Soares 27.3%[lower-alpha 5]
74 / 250
PCP Portuguese Communist Party
Partido Comunista Português		 Communism
Marxism–Leninism		 Far-left Álvaro Cunhal 18.8%[lower-alpha 6]
44 / 250
MDP/CDE Portuguese Democratic Movement
Movimento Democrático Português		 Left-wing nationalism
Democratic socialism		 Left-wing José Manuel Tengarrinha
3 / 250
UDP Popular Democratic Union
União Democrática Popular		 Marxism
Socialism		 Left-wing Mário Tomé 2.2%
1 / 250

Campaign period

Party slogans
Party or alliance Original slogan English translation Refs
AD « Garantir o progresso. » "Ensure progress." [9]
FRS « Um governo para todos. A sua segurança. » "A government for all. Your safety." [10]
APU « Vota APU, para a vitória de Abril » "Vote APU, for the victory of April" [11]
UDP « Abril de novo pela força do povo » "April again by the strength of the people" [12]

National summary of votes and seats
Summary of the 5 October 1980 Assembly of the Republic elections results
Parties Votes % ± Seats MPs %/
votes %
1979 1980 ± % ±
Democratic Alliance[lower-alpha 7] 2,706,66744.91Increase2.4121126Increase550.40Increase2.01.12
Social Democratic[lower-alpha 8] 147,6442.45Increase0.178Increase13.20Increase0.41.31
Democratic and Social Centre[lower-alpha 8] 13,7650.23Decrease0.200Steady00.00Steady0.00.0
Total Democratic Alliance 2,868,076 47.59 Increase2.3 128 134 Increase6 53.60 Increase2.4 1.13
Republican and Socialist Front[lower-alpha 9][lower-alpha 3] 1,606,19826.65——71—28.40—1.07
Socialist[lower-alpha 10] 67,0811.11—743—1.20—1.08
Total Republican and Socialist Front 1,673,279 27.76 Increase0.4 74 74 Steady0 29.60 Steady0.0 1.07
United People Alliance[lower-alpha 11] 1,009,50516.75Decrease2.04741Decrease616.40Decrease2.40.98
People's Democratic Union 83,2041.38Decrease0.811Steady00.40Steady0.00.29
Workers Party of Socialist Unity 83,0951.38Increase1.200Steady00.00Steady0.00.0
Revolutionary Socialist 60,4961.00Increase0.400Steady00.00Steady0.00.0
Labour 39,4080.65——0—0.00—0.0
Portuguese Workers' Communist 35,4090.59Decrease0.300Steady00.00Steady0.00.0
PDC / MIRN/PDP / FN 23,8190.40——0—0.00—0.0
Democratic Party of the Atlantic 8,5290.14——0—0.00—0.0
OCMLP 3,9130.06Increase0.000Steady00.00Steady0.00.0
Total valid 5,888,733 97.72 Increase0.4 250 250 Steady0 100.00 Steady0 —
Blank ballots 34,5520.57Decrease0.1
Invalid ballots 103,1401.71Decrease0.3
Total 6,026,395 100.00
Registered voters/turnout 7,179,02383.94Increase1.0
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
Vote share
AD
 
 44.91%
FRS
 
 26.65%
APU
 
 16.75%
PSD
 
 2.45%
UDP
 
 1.38%
POUS
 
 1.38%
PS
 
 1.11%
PSR
 
 1.00%
AOC
 
 0.65%
PCTP/MRPP
 
 0.59%
Others
 
 0.83%
Blank/Invalid
 
 2.28%
Parliamentary seats
AD
 
 50.40%
FRS
 
 28.40%
APU
 
 16.40%
PSD
 
 3.20%
PS
 
 1.20%
UDP
 
 0.40%

Distribution by constituency
Results of the 1980 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic
by constituency
Constituency%S%S%S%S%S%S Total
S
AD FRS APU PSD PS UDP
Azores 3.1 - 57.0 4 27.3 1 1.3 - 5
Aveiro 58.8 10 27.1 4 6.8 1 15
Beja 22.4 1 21.1 1 47.1 3 1.3 - 5
Braga 54.9 9 29.3 5 8.4 1 0.9 - 15
Bragança 65.3 3 21.3 1 4.8 - 1.0 - 4
Castelo Branco 51.0 4 30.3 2 10.5 - 0.7 - 6
Coimbra 46.1 6 35.9 5 9.9 1 0.8 - 12
Évora 29.2 1 18.7 1 45.7 3 0.9 - 5
Faro 37.2 4 34.7 4 16.7 1 1.9 - 9
Guarda 60.6 4 26.3 1 5.0 - 0.7 - 5
Leiria 59.8 7 22.7 3 9.7 1 1.0 - 11
Lisbon 41.6 25 28.1 17 23.1 13 1.7 1 56
Madeira 2.9 - 63.6 4 16.5 1 4.5 - 5
Portalegre 33.4 2 32.4 1 26.1 1 0.7 - 4
Porto 46.6 19 34.3 14 11.9 5 1.4 - 38
Santarém 42.1 6 30.4 4 19.0 2 1.2 - 12
Setúbal 24.1 4 23.5 4 44.0 9 2.8 - 17
Viana do Castelo 59.2 5 22.8 1 10.0 - 0.7 - 6
Vila Real 62.1 5 22.8 1 5.1 - 0.8 - 6
Viseu 66.8 8 20.9 2 5.0 - 0.6 - 10
Europe 49.6 1 15.2 - 25.4 1 1.4 - 2
Outside Europe 85.5 2 2.6 - 4.0 - 0.4 - 2
Total 44.9 126 26.7 71 16.8 41 2.5 8 1.1 3 1.4 1 250
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

Aftermath

Death of Francisco Sá Carneiro
Main article: 1980 Camarate air crash

Just two months after winning the 1980 elections, and while campaigning for the Democratic Alliance's candidate for the December 1980 Presidential election, Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro and his Defense minister Adelino Amaro da Costa, along with their spouses Snu Abecassis and Maria Vaz Pires, respectively, and the plane's pilot, died in tragic air crash when the small aircraft they were on board crashed and burned in Camarate, Loures, shortly after taking off from the main runway of Lisbon Airport.[13] This tragic air crash sparked a series of conspirancy theories, mainly because of Portugal' involvement in the Iran–Iraq War and the supply of weapons to both Iraq and Iran.[14] Several investigations surrounding the crash were conducted and the official cause of the crash is still a matter of intense debate.[15] Diogo Freitas do Amaral was appointed as Interim Prime Minister until the election of Francisco Pinto Balsemão as PSD leader and subsequent nomination as Prime Minister.[16]

Notes
  1. As leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD).
  2. As leader of the Socialist Party (PS).
  3. Republican and Socialist Front results are compared to the combined totals of the Socialist Party in the 1979 election.
  4. The Social Democratic Party (PSD), the Democratic Social Center (CDS) and the People's Monarchist Party (PPM) contested the 1979 election in a coalition called Democratic Alliance (AD) and won a combined 45.3% of the vote and elected 128 MP's to parliament.
  5. The Socialist Party (PS), Left-wing Union for the Socialist Democracy (UEDS) and the Independent Social-Democratic Action (ASDI) would contest the 1980 election in a coalition called Republican and Socialist Front (FRS).
  6. The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Portuguese Democratic Movement (MDP/CDE) contested the 1979 election in a coalition called United People Alliance (APU) and won a combined 18.8% of the vote and elected 47 MPs to parliament.
  7. Alliance formed by the Social Democratic Party (74 seats), the Democratic and Social Centre (46 seats) and the People's Monarchist Party (6 seats).
  8. Social Democratic Party and Democratic and Social Centre electoral list only in Azores and Madeira.
  9. Alliance formed by the Socialist Party (63 seats), the Leftwing Union for the Socialist Democracy (4 seats) and the Independent Social-Democratic Action (4 seats).
  10. Socialist Party electoral list only in Azores and Madeira.
  11. Portuguese Communist Party (39 MPs) and Portuguese Democratic Movement (2 MPs) ran in coalition.

References
  1. Diário da Républica, 3 de Novembro de 1980 - Lista de candidatos eleitos
  2. Fundação Mário Soares
  3. "Vitória de Sá Carneiro nas eleições de 1980 ", RTP, 8 September 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  4. "Constitution of the Portuguese Republic" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  5. "Effective threshold in electoral systems". Trinity College, Dublin. Retrieved 2015-10-21.
  6. Gallaher, Michael (1992). "Comparing Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Quotas, Thresholds, Paradoxes and Majorities"
  7. "Eleição da Assembleia da República de 5 de Outubro de 1980". CNE - Comissão Nacional de Eleições - Eleição da Assembleia da República de 5 de Outubro de 1980. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
  8. Composição dos Grupos Parlamentares/Partidos
  9. "Comunicação Política em eleições legislativas em Portugal: uma análise a partir dos cartazes eleitorais (1975-2009)" (PDF). Francisco Teixeira (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  10. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1980 – FRENTE REPUBLICANA E SOCIALISTA (PS + ASDI + UEDS)". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  11. "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1980 – APU". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  12. "UDP – 1980". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  13. "Sá Carneiro morre em acidente de aviação" (in Portuguese). RTP. 8 September 2015. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  14. "Atentado de Camarate. Familiar de vítima acusa republicanos dos EUA" (in Portuguese). RTP. 25 August 2020. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  15. "Atentado ou acidente? Quarenta anos depois de Camarate, mistério continua por resolver" (in Portuguese). Jornal Económico. 4 December 2020. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  16. "Tomada de posse do VII Governo Constitucional" (in Portuguese). RTP. 9 January 1981. Retrieved 8 October 2022.

See also
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