Portuguese legislative election, 1983

25 April 1983

250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 125 seats needed for a majority

	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	134 seats, 47.6%²
Seats won	101	75
Seat change	27	59
Popular vote	2,061,309	1,554,804
Percentage	36.1%	27.2%
Swing	8.3%	20.4%

The first and the second most voted parties in each district
(Azores and Madeira are not shown)

Prime Minister before election

Francisco Pinto Balsemão
PSD

Elected Prime Minister

Mário Soares
PS

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

The Portuguese legislative election of 1983 took place on 25 April. The last election, in October 1980 had been won by a right-wing coalition, the Democratic Alliance 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, 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 the year, he 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.

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, 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.

Parties

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

United People Alliance (APU), Álvaro Cunhal
Socialist Party (PS), Mário Soares
Social Democratic Party (PSD), Mota Pinto
Democratic and Social Center (CDS), Lucas Pires

Mário Soares, leader of the Socialist Party, was nominated Prime Minister.

National summary of votes and seats

Summary of the 25 April 1983 Assembly of the Republic elections results
Parties		Votes	%	±	Seats
Parties		Votes	%	±	1980	1983	±	%	±
	Socialist^[A]	2,061,309	36.11	8.4¹	74¹	101	27¹	40.40	10.8¹
	Social Democratic^[B]	1,554,804	27.24	N/A	82	75	7	30.00	2.8
	United People Alliance^[C]	1,031,609	18.07	1.3	41	44	3	17.60	1.2
	Democratic and Social Centre^[B]	716,705	12.56	N/A	46	30	16	12.00	6.4
	Christian Democratic Party	39,180	0.69	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A
	People's Monarchist Party^[B]	27,635	0.48	N/A	6	0	6	0.00	2.4
	People's Democratic Union	27,260	0.48	0.9	1	0	1	0.00	0.4
	People's Democratic Union / PSR	25,222	0.44	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A
	Workers' Communist Party	20,995	0.37	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Workers Party of Socialist Unity	19,657	0.34	1.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist Party	13,327	0.23	0.8	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Socialist Workers League	11,500	0.20	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A
	OCMLP	6,113	0.11	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Democratic Party of the Atlantic	5,523	0.10	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Communist Party (Reconstructed)^[D]	86	0.00	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A
Total valid		5,561,011	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 (turnout 77.79%)		5,707,695	100.00	6.1
^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.^[3] ^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.
² Social Democratic Party results are compared to the combined totals of the Democratic Alliance in the 1980 election.

Vote share

PS			36.11%
PSD			27.24%
APU			18.07%
CDS			12.56%
Others/Invalides			6.01%

Portuguese legislative election, 1983

Parties

National summary of votes and seats

References

External links

See also