1987 Portuguese legislative election

1987 Portuguese legislative election
250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly; 126 seats needed for a majority
Registered	7,930,668 1.4%
Turnout	5,676,358 (71.6%); 2.6 pp
Prime Minister before election; Aníbal Cavaco Silva; PSD	Prime Minister after election ; Aníbal Cavaco Silva; PSD

The 1987 Portuguese legislative election took place on 19 July. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

In the previous election, in 1985, the Social Democratic Party had won a minority government managing to survive in coalition with the Democratic and Social Center and the Democratic Renewal Party, and after the approval of a no-confidence motion from the left-wing parties, with the aid of the Democratic Renewal Party, the government fell. The PS tried to form a new government with the support of the PRD and CDU, but Mário Soares, the President at the time, rejected the idea and called for a new election.^[1]

The PSD was reelected in a landslide, winning a majority government with just over 50 percent of the votes and 148 of the 250 seats, a majority of 46. Not only was this the most seats that a Portuguese party had ever won in a free election, but it was first time since the Carnation Revolution that a single party won an absolute majority. Although the PSD was very popular going into the election, the size of its victory far exceeded the party's most optimistic expectations. The PSD won every district with the exception of Setúbal, Évora and Beja, which voted for the CDU.

The Socialist Party gained a few seats and got a slightly higher share of the vote, 22 percent compared with the almost 21 percent in 1985, but the scale of the PSD victory made the party lose most of its influence. Like in 1979, 1980 and 1985, the PS failed to win a single district. The left-wing Democratic Unity Coalition lost some of its MPs to the Socialist Party and the Democratic Renewal Party, now led by former President António Ramalho Eanes, lost almost all of its influence, mainly due to its responsibility in the fall of the former PSD minority government. The right-wing Democratic and Social Center lost almost half of its vote share, due to the effect of tactical voting for the also right-wing, Social Democratic Party.

European elections were held on the same day.

Background

Fall of the government

In the first months of 1987, a trip of a Portuguese parliamentary delegation to the Soviet Union, which also passed by Estonia, a territory that wasn't recognized by Portugal as under Soviet control, created a diplomatic issue that was used by the Opposition to bring down the Cavaco Silva minority government.^[2] Parliament approved, by a 134 to 108 vote, a motion of no confidence and the government fell.^[3] President Mário Soares refused an alternative PS-PRD-PCP government and decided to dissolve Parliament and call a snap election.^[4]

Leadership changes and challenges

CDS 1986 leadership election

The 1985 general election results were quite disappointing for CDS, and then party leader Francisco Lucas Pires resigned from the leadership.^[5] Adriano Moreira, supported by the more conservative wings, and João Morais Leitão, supported by the more "centrist" wings of the party, were the two candidates running for the leadership in the April 1986 congress.^[6] Adriano Moreira was elected new party leader by a 82-vote difference.^[7] The results are the following:

Ballot: 13 April 1986
Candidate		Votes	%
	Adriano Moreira	533	54.2
	João Morais Leitão	451	45.8
Turnout		984
Source: Results

PS 1986 leadership election

In the 1985 general election the PS nominated António Almeida Santos, while an internal leadership, head by António Macedo, ruled the party, but the Socialists achieved their worst result ever, just 20.8 percent.^[8] The PS candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Mário Soares, was narrowly elected to that post by a 51 to 49 percent margin against Diogo Freitas do Amaral, the candidate supported by CDS and PSD.^[9] After that victory, the party called a party congress, for late June 1986, to elect a new leader. There were two candidates on the ballot, Vítor Constâncio and Jaime Gama.^[10] Vítor Constâncio was elected as new party leader.^[11]

Ballot: 29 June 1986
Candidate		Votes
	Vítor Constâncio	WIN
	Jaime Gama
Turnout
Source:

PRD 1986 leadership election

The Democratic Renewal Party surprised with their excellent results in the 1985 elections, winning almost 18 percent of the votes.^[12] António Ramalho Eanes, the main figure and inspiration for PRD, left the post of President of the Republic in March 1986, and, shortly after in late April, was unanimously elected as the new leader of the PRD, succeeding Hermínio Martinho.^[13]

Ballot: 29 April 1986
Candidate		Votes	%
	António Ramalho Eanes	Voice vote
Turnout			100.0
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.^[14]

The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude.^[15] 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.^[16]

For these elections, and compared with the 1985 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:^[17]

District	Number of MPs	Map
Lisbon	56	17 6 39 6 4 15 10 5 11 6 11 12 56 3 4 17 5 9 5 5 2 2
Porto	39
Braga⁽⁺¹⁾ and Setúbal	17
Aveiro	15
Santarém	12
Leiria and Coimbra	11
Viseu	10
Faro	9
Castelo Branco, Viana do Castelo and Vila Real	6
Azores, Beja, Guarda and Madeira	5
Bragança and Évora^(–1)	4
Portalegre	3
Europe and Outside Europe	2

Parties

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 4th legislature (1985–1987) and that also partook in the election:

Name			Ideology	Political position	Leader	1985 result		Seats at dissolution
Name			Ideology	Political position	Leader	%	Seats	Seats at dissolution
	PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism Classical liberalism	Centre-right	Aníbal Cavaco Silva	29.9%	88 / 250	87 / 250
	PS	Socialist Party Partido Socialista	Social democracy	Centre-left	Vítor Constâncio	20.8%	57 / 250	56 / 250
	PRD	Democratic Renewal Party Partido Renovador Democrático	Centrism Third Way	Centre	António Ramalho Eanes	17.9%	45 / 250	45 / 250
	PCP	Portuguese Communist Party Partido Comunista Português	Communism Marxism–Leninism	Far-left	Álvaro Cunhal	15.5% ^[a]	35 / 250	34 / 250
	MDP/CDE	Portuguese Democratic Movement Movimento Democrático Português	Left-wing nationalism Democratic socialism	Left-wing	José Manuel Tengarrinha	15.5% ^[a]	3 / 250	3 / 250
	CDS	Democratic and Social Centre Centro Democrático e Social	Christian democracy Conservatism	Centre-right to right-wing	Adriano Moreira	10.0%	22 / 250	22 / 250
	Ind.	Independent Independente	Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles (left the Socialist Party caucus)^[18] Maria Amélia Santos (left the Portuguese Communist Party caucus)^[19] Rui Oliveira e Costa (left the Social Democratic Party caucus)^[20]					3 / 250

Seat changes

On 16 November 1985, MP Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, elected in the Socialist Party list for Porto, left the party and became an Independent, following the agreement he made with the party in order to be elected.^[21]

Also on 16 November 1985, MP Maria Amélia Santos, elected in the United People Alliance list for Lisbon, became an Independent representing the Ecologist Party "The Greens".^[22]

On 24 June 1986, MP Rui Oliveira e Costa, elected in the Social Democratic Party list for Lisbon, became an Independent after leaving the PSD caucus following disagreements with the party's leadership regarding policy and the 1986 Presidential election.^[23]

Campaign period

Party slogans

	Original slogan	English translation	Refs
PSD	« Portugal não pode parar »	"Portugal can't stop"	^[24]
PS	« A alternativa »	"The alternative"	^[25]
CDU	« CDU, É melhor para Portugal »	"CDU, It's better for Portugal"	^[26]
PRD	« Agora Portugal »	"Now Portugal"	^[27]
CDS	« Vote prá maioria »	"Vote for the majority"	^[28]

Candidates' debates

No debates between the main parties were held as the PSD leader and Prime Minister, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, refused to take part in any debate.^[29]

Opinion polling

The following table shows the opinion polls of voting intention of the Portuguese voters before the election. Included is also the result of the Portuguese general elections in 1985 and 1987 for reference.

Exit poll

Date Released	Polling Firm		PS				Others	Lead
Date Released	Polling Firm						Others	Lead

19 Jul 1987	Leg. election	50.2 148	22.2 60	4.9 7	12.1 31	4.4 4	6.2 0	28.0

19 Jul 1987	RTP1	48.0–50.0	21.0–23.0	5.0–7.0	12.5–14.5	3.0–5.0	–	27.0
19 Jul 1987	Antena1	45.0–47.0	24.0–25.0	–	–	–	–	21.0 22.0
19 Jul 1987	Rádio Comercial	50.1	21.9	5.7	12.1	4.0	6.2	28.2
17 Jul 1987	Euroexpansão	41.0–44.0	22.0–25.0	11.0–14.0	13.0–15.0	4.0–6.0	–	19.0
17 Jul 1987	Euroexpansão	50.1	22.5	5.0	12.5	4.4	–	27.6
10 Jul 1987	Euroexpansão	47.5	20.8	5.0	11.4	4.4	–	26.7
3 Jul 1987	Euroexpansão	41.2	18.3	4.6	11.2	3.5	–	22.9
26 Jun 1987	Euroexpansão	38.1	16.5	3.9	7.8	3.3	–	21.6
14 Mar 1987	Euroexpansão	41.3	27.2	11.1	8.8	7.5	4.1	14.1
Feb 1987	Euroexpansão	41.7	28.8	11.5	8.6	5.5	3.9	12.9
Jun 1986	Euroexpansão	41.0	?	?	?	?	?	?
9 Oct 1986	Tempo	35.6	24.8	9.2	—	9.8	–	10.8
15 Dec 1985	Local elections	34.2	27.6	4.7	19.6	9.8	4.1	6.6

6 Oct 1985	Leg. election	29.9 88	20.8 57	17.9 45	15.5 38	10.0 22	5.9 0	9.1

National summary of votes and seats

Summary of the 19 July 1987 Assembly of the Republic elections results
Parties		Votes	%	±	MPs					MPs %/ votes %

Parties		Votes	%	±	1985	1987	±	%	±	MPs %/ votes %
	Social Democratic	2,850,784	50.22	20.3	88	148	60	59.20	24.0	1.18
	Socialist	1,262,506	22.24	1.4	57	60	3	24.00	1.2	1.08
	Democratic Unity Coalition^[b]^[c]	689,137	12.14	3.4	38	31	7	12.40	2.8	1.02
	Democratic Renewal	278,561	4.91	13.0	45	7	38	2.80	15.2	0.57
	Democratic and Social Centre	251,987	4.44	5.6	22	4	18	1.60	7.2	0.36
	People's Democratic Union	50,717	0.89	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist	32,977	0.58	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Portuguese Democratic Movement	32,607	0.57	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Christian Democratic	31,667	0.56	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	People's Monarchist	23,218	0.41	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Portuguese Workers' Communist	20,800	0.37	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Communist Party (Reconstructed)	18,544	0.33	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Workers Party of Socialist Unity	9,185	0.16	0.6	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
Total valid		5,552,690	97.82	0.3	250	250	0	100.00	0.0	—
Blank ballots		50,135	0.88	0.1
Invalid ballots		73,533	1.30	0.4
Total		5,676,358	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		7,930,668	71.57	2.6
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share

PSD			50.22%
PS			22.24%
CDU			12.14%
PRD			4.91%
CDS			4.44%
UDP			0.89%
PSR			0.58%
MDP			0.57%
PDC			0.56%
Others			1.27%
Blank/Invalid			2.18%

Parliamentary seats

PSD			59.20%
PS			24.00%
CDU			12.40%
PRD			2.80%
CDS			1.60%

Distribution by constituency

Results of the 1987 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic
by constituency
Constituency	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	Total S
Constituency	PSD		PS		CDU		PRD		CDS		Total S
Azores	66.7	4	20.0	1	2.3	-	3.0	-	3.3	-	5
Aveiro	60.4	11	22.9	4	4.4	-	2.7	-	5.3	-	15
Beja	24.5	1	20.3	1	38.7	3	5.7	-	2.0	-	5
Braga	53.4	10	25.9	5	6.1	1	3.3	-	5.9	1	17
Bragança	60.8	3	19.2	1	3.2	-	1.3	-	7.6	-	4
Castelo Branco	52.1	4	22.4	2	7.1	-	6.0	-	4.7	-	6
Coimbra	50.0	6	28.7	4	7.2	1	3.5	-	4.5	-	11
Évora	32.1	2	15.4	-	36.2	2	7.7	-	2.1	-	4
Faro	46.7	5	24.9	3	10.9	1	6.3	-	3.1	-	9
Guarda	60.0	4	21.8	1	3.3	-	2.0	-	6.6	-	5
Leiria	60.8	9	18.7	2	5.9	-	3.0	-	6.0	-	11
Lisbon	45.8	28	21.2	12	16.5	10	6.9	4	3.7	2	56
Madeira	65.5	4	16.2	1	1.9	-	3.3	-	5.2	-	5
Portalegre	37.4	1	25.1	1	20.9	1	6.3	-	3.1	-	3
Porto	50.9	22	26.7	11	9.4	4	4.0	1	4.0	1	39
Santarém	47.9	7	21.7	3	12.6	1	7.3	1	3.6	-	12
Setúbal	32.6	6	17.6	3	32.7	7	8.7	1	1.9	-	17
Viana do Castelo	54.5	5	20.3	1	6.3	-	4.8	-	7.7	-	6
Vila Real	62.5	5	20.3	1	4.1	-	1.4	-	5.0	-	6
Viseu	64.1	8	17.9	2	2.9	-	1.7	-	7.0	-	10
Europe	37.0	1	28.4	1	15.9	-	4.9	-	6.6	-	2
Outside Europe	63.2	2	7.3	-	1.4	-	1.7	-	19.9	-	2
Total	50.2	148	22.2	60	12.1	31	4.9	7	4.4	4	250
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

Most voted political force by district (Azores and Madeira not shown).
Winner and seats by constituency.
Most voted political force by municipality.

Notes

^ The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Portuguese Democratic Movement (MDP/CDE) contested the 1985 election in a coalition called United People Alliance (APU) and won a combined 15.5% of the vote and elected 39 MPs to parliament.
^ Portuguese Communist Party (29 MPs) and "The Greens" (2 MPs) ran in coalition.
^ In 1985, as United People Alliance.

References

^ "1987. Da moção de censura à primeira maioria de Cavaco", Jornal i, 30 August 2018. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
^ "1987. Da moção de censura à primeira maioria de Cavaco" (in Portuguese). Jornal i. 30 August 2018. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
^ "A única moção de censura e as duas moções de rejeição que derrubaram governos" (in Portuguese). Jornal Económico. 20 February 2019. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
^ "Crise. Soares dissolveu em 1987. Cavaco não o pode fazer em 2015" (in Portuguese). Jornal i. 16 October 2015. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
^ "Histórica CDS-PP", CDS-PP. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
^ "Do CDS ao CDS-PP: o Partido do Centro Democrático Social e o seu papel na política portuguesa", Richard A. H. Robinson, 1996. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
^ "Adriano Moreira completa hoje 90 anos", TSF, 6 September 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
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^ "1986, o ano de "Soares é fixe"", TSF, 7 January 2017. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
^ "20 Anos Acção Socialista 1978-1998", Socialist Party, 1998. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
^ "Vítor Constâncio (n.1943)", Centro Documentação 25 de Abril. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
^ "PRD é a surpresa das legislativas de 1985 ", RTP, 8 September 2015. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
^ "Exclusivo 1986. Eanes assume liderança do PRD", Diario de Notícias, 29 April 2019. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
^ "Constitution of the Portuguese Republic" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
^ "Effective threshold in electoral systems". Trinity College, Dublin. Retrieved 2015-10-21.
^ Gallaher, Michael (1992). "Comparing Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Quotas, Thresholds, Paradoxes and Majorities"
^ "Eleição da Assembleia da República de 19 de Julho de 1987". CNE - Comissão Nacional de Eleições - Eleição da Assembleia da República de 19 de Julho de 1987. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
^ "Deputado Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles". www.parlamento.pt (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 26 January 2025.
^ "Deputado Maria Santos". www.parlamento.pt (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 26 January 2025.
^ "Deputado Rui Oliveira e Costa". www.parlamento.pt (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 26 January 2025.
^ "Almeida Santos apresenta listas e defende revisão da Constituição". www.casacomum.org (in European Portuguese). 13 August 1985. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
^ "Os Verdes. O "partido melancia" ganhou mais influência no poder". Observador (in Portuguese). 4 January 2017. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
^ "Morreu Rui Oliveira e Costa, politólogo e adepto fervoroso do Sporting". Público (in Portuguese). 9 November 2021. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
^ "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1987 – PSD". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
^ "Evolução da Comunicação Política e Eleitoral em Portugal" (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
^ "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1987 – CDU – AUTOCOLANTES". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
^ "Campanha eleitoral do PRD". RTP (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
^ "ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1987 – CDS". EPHEMERA (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 May 2020.
^ "O que mudam os debates na TV". Correio da Manhã (in Portuguese). 4 September 2009. Retrieved 11 May 2020.

External links

Comissão Nacional de Eleições Archived 2005-04-08 at the Wayback Machine
Centro de Estudos do Pensamento Político