Portuguese legislative election, 2005

Portuguese legislative election, 2005
Portugal
20 February 2005
230 seats to the Portuguese Assembly
116 seats needed for a majority
  First party Second party
 
Leader José Sócrates Pedro Santana Lopes
Party PS PSD
Leader since 24 September 2004 29 June 2004
Leader's seat Castelo Branco[1] Lisbon[2]
Last election 96 seats, 37.8% 105 seats, 40.2%
Seats won 121 75
Seat change Increase 25 Decrease 30
Popular vote 2,588,312 1,653,425
Percentage 45.0% 28.8%
Swing Increase 7.2% Decrease 11.4%

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

Pedro Santana Lopes
PSD

 Elected Prime Minister

José Sócrates
PS

Portugal
Coat of arms of Portugal
This article is part of a series on the
politics and government of
Portugal
Constitution
Foreign relations
  • Politics portal

The Portuguese legislative election of 2005 took place on 20 February. These elections were called after the decision of President Jorge Sampaio on 30 November 2004 to dissolve the Parliament as an answer to the political instability caused by the government led by Pedro Santana Lopes (PSD) in coalition with the PP. Santana Lopes had become Prime-Minister after José Manuel Durão Barroso left the country in order to become President of the European Commission in a decision that divided the country, because many Portuguese were expecting that the Socialist President Jorge Sampaio would dissolve parliament and call a legislative election. However, after five unstable months, president Sampaio decided to dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections. The Prime Minister nevertheless announced the resignation of the government on 11 December, in an action with no practical effects whatsoever.

The campaign started officially on 6 February and the major topics were the problematic state of the country's finances, unemployment and abortion.

The right-wing parties, mainly the Social Democrats, were punished for their performance in government, and lost more than 11% of votes they had garnered in the previous election. On the left, the Left Bloc achieved its best result ever and made the biggest climb, gaining 5 MPs, while the CDU (Communists and the Greens) gained 2 MPs and reversed their downward trend of the last elections.

Voter turnout was the highest since 1995, as 64.3% of the electorate cast a ballot.

Parties

The parties that partook in the election, and their leaders, were:

With 230 seats the results are:

José Sócrates, leader of the Socialist Party, was nominated Prime Minister.

Opinion Polling

See also: Exit poll and Opinion poll

The following table shows the opinion polls of voting intention of the Portuguese voters before the election. Those parties that are listed are currently represented in parliament. Included is also the result of the Portuguese general elections in 2002 and 2005 for reference.

Date Released Polling Firm PS PSD CDS-PP CDU BE Others Lead
20 Feb 2005 Leg. Election 45.0
121 seats		 28.8
75 seats		 7.2
12 seats		 7.5
14 seats		 6.4
8 seats		 5.1
0 seats		 16.2
18 Feb Aximage 46.8 29.6 7.3 7.0 5.5 3.8 17.2
18 Feb Marktest 46.0 26.8 7.5 8.9 7.7 3.1 19.2
18 Feb Eurosondagem 45.0 30.6 7.7 7.7 5.7 3.3 14.4
18 Feb IPOM 46.0 30.0 8.0 6.0 7.0 3.0 16.0
18 Feb INTERCAMPUS 45.9 30.3 7.1 7.6 5.2 3.9 15.6
17 Feb TNS/Euroteste 39.0 28.0 7.0 6.0 6.0 14.0 11.0
17 Feb Universidade Católica 46.0 31.0 6.0 7.0 7.0 3.0 15.0
12 Feb Eurosondagem 44.4 31.3 7.4 6.9 6.4 3.6 13.1
11 Feb Aximage 44.7 27.4 6.4 7.1 4.8 9.6 17.3
4 Feb IPOM 49.0 31.0 8.0 6.0 5.0 1.0 18.0
4 Feb Aximage 43.5 29.3 7.0 5.6 3.5 11.1 14.2
3 Feb INTERCAMPUS 46.5 31.6 4.8 8.1 4.5 4.5 14.9
29 Jan Eurosondagem 46.1 32.1 7.0 6.6 4.6 3.6 14.0
28 Jan Marktest 45.1 27.7 6.3 7.7 8.1 5.1 17.5
28 Jan Aximage 43.3 27.4 6.3 5.8 5.0 12.2 15.9
28 Jan Universidade Católica 46.0 28.0 6.0 8.0 8.0 4.0 18.0
27 Jan TNS/Euroteste 40.0 32.0 6.0 4.0 5.0 13.0 8.0
21 Jan Axiamge 42.8 28.7 7.1 6.2 4.3 10.9 14.1
2005
17 Mar 2002 Leg. Election 37.8
96 seats		 40.2
105 seats		 8.7
14 seats		 6.9
12 seats		 2.7
3 seats		 3.7
3 seats		 2.4

National summary of votes and seats

 Summary of the 20 February 2005 Assembly of the Republic elections results
Parties Votes % ± MPs MPs %/
votes %
2002 2005 ± % ±
Socialist 2,588,31245.03Increase7.296121Increase2552.61Increase10.91.17
Social Democratic[A] 1,653,42528.77Decrease11.410575Decrease3032.61Decrease13.01.13
Unitary Democratic Coalition[B] 433,3697.54Increase0.61214Increase26.09Increase0.90.81
People's 416,4157.24Decrease1.51412Decrease25.22Decrease0.90.72
Left Bloc 364,9716.35Increase3.638Increase53.48Increase2.20.55
Portuguese Workers' Communist 48,1860.84Increase0.200Steady00.00Steady0.00.0
New Democracy 40,3580.70 N/A N/A0 N/A0.00 N/A0.0
Humanist Party 17,0560.30Increase0.100Steady00.00Steady0.00.0
National Renovator Party 9,3740.16Increase0.100Steady00.00Steady0.00.0
Workers Party of Socialist Unity 5,5350.10Increase0.000Steady00.00Steady0.00.0
Democratic Party of the Atlantic[C] 1,6810.03 N/A N/A0 N/A0.00 N/A0.0
Total valid 5,578,782 97.06 Decrease1.0 230 230 Steady0 100.00 Steady0.0 —
Blank ballots 103,5371.80Increase0.8
Invalid ballots 65,5151.14Increase0.2
Total (turnout 64.26%) 5,747,834 100.00 Increase2.8
A From the Social Democratic electoral lists were elected two MPs from the People's Monarchist Party and other two MPs from Earth Party.
B Portuguese Communist Party (12 MPs) and "The Greens" (2 MPs) ran in coalition.[3]
C Democratic Party of the Atlantic electoral list only in Azores.
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
Vote share
PS
  
 45.03%
PSD
  
 28.77%
CDU
  
 7.54%
CDS-PP
  
 7.24%
BE
  
 6.35%
PCTP/MRPP
  
 0.84%
Others/Invalides
  
 4.23%

Distribution by constituency

Seats
Party list seats gains and losts
Percents of votes
 Results of the 2005 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic by constituency
Constituency%S%S%S%S%S Total
S
PS PSD CDU CDS-PP BE
Azores 53.1 3 34.4 2 1.7 - 4.0 - 2.9 - 5
Aveiro 41.1 8 35.7 6 3.5 - 9.8 1 5.1 - 15
Beja 51.0 2 12.3 - 24.1 1 2.9 - 4.7 - 3
Braga 45.4 9 32.9 7 4.8 1 7.8 1 4.6 - 18
Bragança 42.1 2 39.0 2 2.0 - 9.7 - 2.5 - 4
Castelo Branco 56.0 4 26.7 1 3.8 - 5.3 - 3.7 - 5
Coimbra 45.4 6 31.9 4 5.5 - 5.5 - 6.3 - 10
EvoraÉvora 49.7 2 16.7 - 20.9 1 3.7 - 4.6 - 3
Faro 49.3 6 24.6 2 6.9 - 5.8 - 7.7 - 8
Guarda 46.8 2 34.7 2 2.9 - 7.0 - 3.4 - 4
Leiria 35.6 4 39.8 5 4.6 - 8.9 1 5.5 - 10
Lisbon 44.1 23 23.7 12 9.8 5 8.2 4 8.8 4 48
Madeira 35.0 3 45.2 3 3.6 - 6.6 - 3.8 - 6
Portalegre 54.9 2 20.2 - 12.1 - 4.2 - 4.6 - 2
Porto 48.5 20 27.8 12 5.4 2 6.9 2 6.7 2 38
Santarém 46.1 6 26.4 3 8.6 1 6.9 - 6.5 - 10
Setúbal 43.6 8 16.1 3 20.0 3 5.1 1 10.3 2 17
Viana do Castelo 42.0 3 33.5 2 3.8 - 11.4 1 4.5 - 6
Vila Real 43.8 3 40.2 2 2.6 - 6.8 - 2.4 - 5
Viseu 40.4 4 40.2 4 2.2 - 8.6 1 3.3 - 9
Europe 54.3 1 27.2 1 4.2 - 3.4 - 2.3 - 2
Rest of the World 26.3 - 57.7 2 1.0 - 3.5 - 0.7 - 2
Total 45.0 121 28.8 75 7.5 14 7.2 12 6.4 8 230
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
  2. ↑ Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
  3. ↑ Electoral results - Assembly of the Republic

External links

See also

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, February 23, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.