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1983 Portuguese legislative election

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Field	Value
election_name	1983 Portuguese legislative election
country	Portugal
type	parliamentary
ongoing	no
previous_election	1980 Portuguese legislative election
previous_year	1980
next_election	1985 Portuguese legislative election
next_year	1985
seats_for_election	All 250 seats in the Assembly of the Republic
majority_seats	126
registered	7,337,064 2.2%
turnout	5,707,695 (77.8%)
6.1 pp
election_date	25 April 1983
image1
leader1	Mário Soares
party1	Socialist Party (Portugal)
leader_since1	19 April 1973
leaders_seat1	Lisbon
last_election1	66 seats, 27.8%
seats1	101
seat_change1	35
popular_vote1	2,061,309
percentage1	36.1%
swing1	8.3 pp
image2	[[File:Primeiro Símbolo do PSD.png	85px]]
leader2	Carlos Mota Pinto
party2	Social Democratic Party (Portugal)
leader_since2	Presumptive
leaders_seat2	Coimbra
last_election2	82 seats (AD)
seats2	75
seat_change2	7
popular_vote2	1,554,804
percentage2	27.2%
swing2
image4
colour4	FF0000
leader4	Álvaro Cunhal
party4	PCP
alliance4	APU
leader_since4	14 April 1978
leaders_seat4	Lisbon
last_election4	41 seats, 16.8%
seats4	44
seat_change4	3
popular_vote4	1,031,609
percentage4	18.1%
swing4	1.3 pp
image5
leader5	Francisco Lucas Pires
party5	CDS
colour5	0093DD
leader_since5	20 February 1983
leaders_seat5	Lisbon
last_election5	46 seats (AD)
seats5	30
seat_change5	16
popular_vote5	716,705
percentage5	12.6%
swing5
<!-- Map -->	title	Prime Minister
posttitle	Prime Minister after election
before_election	Francisco Pinto Balsemão
before_party	Social Democratic Party (Portugal)
after_election	Mário Soares
after_party	Socialist Party (Portugal)
map	{{Switcher
outgoing_members	[outgoing members](2nd-legislature-of-the-third-portuguese-republic)
elected_members	[elected members](3rd-legislature-of-the-third-portuguese-republic)

6.1 pp

The 1983 Portuguese legislative election took place on 25 April. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

The last election, in October 1980 had been won by a right-wing coalition, the Democratic Alliance (AD) 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 4 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. However, Balsemão's governments were very unstable and after the 1982 local elections results, he resigned as Prime Minister. The Social Democratic Party proposed possible names for Prime Minister to President of Portugal António Ramalho Eanes, but the President refused them and decided to call a snap election for April 1983.

The election was won by the Socialist Party with 36 percent, 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, which achieved 27 percent, in what was called the "Central Bloc". 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.

Background

Main article: 1980 Camarate air crash

In October 1980, the Democratic Alliance (AD), led by Francisco Sá Carneiro, was reelected with a reinforced majority but it was cut short with the death of Sá Carneiro, his partner Snu Abecassis, his Defense minister Adelino Amaro da Costa and his wife, plus other crew members, in a tragic plane crash in Camarate, Loures, shortly after taking off from the main runway of Lisbon Airport. This tragic air crash sparked a series of conspirancy theories, mainly because of Portugal's involvement in the Iran–Iraq War and the supply of weapons to both Iraq and Iran.

Following the death of Sá Carneiro, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, CDS leader, became interim Prime Minister until the election of a new PSD leader. Days later, Francisco Pinto Balsemão was elected PSD leader and sworn in as Prime Minister.

Government fall

Pinto Balsemão had a lot of problems in leading the government, as he lacked support from many senior members of his party, like Aníbal Cavaco Silva, former Finance minister under Sá Carneiro, and several of his cabinet ministers kept resigning. Moreover, the right-wing policies were criticized by the left-wing and by the trade unions, and in February 1982, 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 1982, and also influenced by the AD's bad results in the 1982 local elections, Balsemão himself also resigned.

The Social Democratic Party proposed, to President Ramalho Eanes, a government led by Vítor Crespo, but President Eanes rejects the proposal citing that the political conditions were just too deteriorated, thus he decided to dissolve the Parliament and call an election for April. Shortly after, the AD was dissolved as PSD, CDS and PPM decided to contest by their own the April snap election.

Leadership changes and challenges

PSD 1980 leadership election

On 13 December 1980, just a few days after Sá Carneiro's death, the PSD national party council elected Francisco Pinto Balsemão as party leader and nominated him to became Prime Minister. Balsemão was sworn in as Prime Minister on 9 January 1981.

|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9" ! align="center" colspan=2 style="width: 60px"|Candidate ! align="center" style="width: 50px"|Votes ! align="center" style="width: 50px"|%

-
-
-
- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
-
}

CDS 1983 leadership election

After the dissolution of the Democratic Alliance (AD), Diogo Freitas do Amaral resigned from the party's leadership, and a new congress to elect a new leader was called. Two candidates were on the ballot, Francisco Lucas Pires and Luís Barbosa, with Lucas Pires being elected as new party leader. |- style="background-color:#E9E9E9" ! align="center" colspan=2 style="width: 60px"|Candidate ! align="center" style="width: 50px"|Votes ! align="center" style="width: 50px"|%

-
-
- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
-
}

PSD 1983 nomination selection

Just like CDS, after the collapse of the AD coalition, the then PSD leader Francisco Pinto Balsemão announces he would not run for the leadership of the party. Shortly after, Carlos Mota Pinto is selected by the PSD as the party's candidate for Prime Minister. |- style="background-color:#E9E9E9" ! align="center" colspan=2 style="width: 60px"|Candidate ! align="center" style="width: 50px"|Votes ! align="center" style="width: 50px"|%

-
- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
-
}

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.

The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude. 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.

For these elections, and compared with the 1980 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:

District	Number of MPs	Map
Lisbon	56
Porto	38
Setúbal	17
Braga	16
Aveiro	15
Santarém	12
Leiria and Coimbra	11
Viseu	10
Faro	9
Castelo Branco, Viana do Castelo and Vila Real	6
Azores, Beja, Évora, Guarda and Madeira	5
Bragança and Portalegre	4
Europe and Outside Europe	2

Parties

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 2nd legislature (1980–1983) and that also contested the elections:

Name	Ideology	Political position	Leader
Social Democratic Party (Portugal)}};"		PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party
Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism	Centre-right	Carlos Mota Pinto
47.6%

CDS – People's Party}};"		CDS	Democratic and Social Center
Centro Democrático e Social	Christian democracy	Centre-right
to right-wing	Francisco Lucas Pires
People's Monarchist Party (Portugal)}};"		PPM	People's Monarchist Party
Partido Popular Monárquico	Monarchism
Green conservatism	Right-wing	Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles
Socialist Party (Portugal)}};"		PS	Socialist Party
Partido Socialista	Social democracy	Centre-left	Mário Soares
27.8%

	UEDS	Left-wing Union for the Socialist Democracy
União da Esquerda para a Democracia Socialista	Democratic Socialism
Workers' self-management	Left-wing	António Lopes Cardoso
	ASDI	Independent Social-Democratic Action
Acção Social Democrata Independente	Democratic Socialism
Social democracy	Centre-left	António de Sousa Franco
	PCP	Portuguese Communist Party
Partido Comunista Português	Communism
Marxism–Leninism	Far-left	Álvaro Cunhal
16.8%

Democratic Electoral Commission}};"		MDP/CDE	Portuguese Democratic Movement
Movimento Democrático Português	Left-wing nationalism
Democratic socialism	Left-wing	José Manuel Tengarrinha
Left Bloc (Portugal)}};"		UDP	Popular Democratic Union
União Democrática Popular	Marxism
Socialism	Left-wing	Mário Tomé	1.4%

Campaign period

Party slogans

Party or alliance	English translation	Refs
Social Democratic Party (Portugal)}}"	PSD	« Firmeza na decisão. Competência na acção. »	"Firmness in the decision. Competence in action."
Socialist Party (Portugal)}}"	PS	« Juntos vamos conseguir »	"Together we will do it"
CDS – People's Party}}"	CDS	« O nosso caminho é Portugal »	"Our path is Portugal"
Unitary Democratic Coalition}}"	APU	« Vota APU, A solução! »	"Vote APU, The Solution!"

Candidates' debates

1983 Portuguese legislative election debates	Date	Organisers	Moderator(s)	Present Absent invitee Non-invitee	PSD
Pinto	PS
Soares	CDS
Pires	APU
Cunhal	Refs	Social Democratic Party (Portugal)}};"		Socialist Party (Portugal)}};"		CDS – People's Party}};"	Unitary Democratic Coalition}};"
23 Mar	Antena 1		P	P	P	P
31 Mar	RTP1		P	P	P	P

Opinion polling

Polling firm/Link	Date Released	[[File:Primeiro Símbolo do PSD.png	29px	link=Social Democratic Party (Portugal)	PSD]]	[[File:CDS-PP (1982-1994).png	25px
1983 legislative election	25 Apr 1983	27.2
12.6
	36.1
18.1
6.0
Socialist Party (Portugal)}}; color:white;"	8.9
[RTP](https://arquivos.rtp.pt/conteudos/eleicoes-parlamento-83-parte-viii/)	25 Apr 1983	25.4–27.7
11.5–12.0
36.0–39.1
17.2–18.5
–	10.6
11.4
[RTP](https://arquivos.rtp.pt/conteudos/eleicoes-parlamento-83-parte-iv/)	25 Apr 1983	22.0–25.5
12.0–14.5
36.0–38.5
16.5–19.0
–	13.0
14.0
[Tempo](http://casacomum.org/cc/visualizador?pasta=03861.003#!7)	Apr 1983	24	12.5	38	17	8.5	14
[Euroexpansão](https://repositorio.ipl.pt/bitstream/10400.21/2932/1/tese_doutoramento.pdf)	29 Jan 1983	24	12	33	19	12	9
[1982 local elections](1982-portuguese-local-elections)	12 Dec 1982	42.7	31.8	20.9	4.6	10.9
[Euroexpansão](https://repositorio.ipl.pt/bitstream/10400.21/2932/1/tese_doutoramento.pdf)	Sep 1982	22	19	28	18	13	6
[Antropos](https://www.arquivopintasilgo.pt/arquivopintasilgo/Documentos/0187.016.pdf)	27 Jul 1981	42.0	36.1	13.9	8.0	5.9
25.1	9.9	42.4	14.0	8.6	17.3
[1980 legislative election](1980-portuguese-legislative-election)	5 Oct 1980	47.6
27.8
16.8
7.8
19.8

Results

National summary

Distribution by constituency

|- class="unsortable" !rowspan=2|Constituency!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S !rowspan=2|Total S |- class="unsortable" style="text-align:center;" !colspan=2 | PS !colspan=2 | PSD !colspan=2 | APU !colspan=2 | CDS |- | 31.1 | 2 | 3

3.1
4.7
-
5
-
6
34.8
6
7.0
1
16.4
2
15
-
28.0
2
11.8
-
3
4.1
-
5
-
7
27.0
5
8.8
1
18.3
3
16
-
30.4
1
2
4.8
-
20.9
1
4
-
3
30.6
2
11.3
-
13.2
1
6
-
6
27.8
3
10.7
1
10.2
1
11
-
23.9
1
18.6
1
3
4.5
-
5
-
5
23.1
2
18.6
2
7.4
-
9
-
2
31.5
2
4.9
-
23.8
1
5
-
32.7
4
4
9.5
1
16.2
2
11
-
21
21.8
13
25.3
15
11.7
7
56
-
24.4
1
4
2.8
-
8.2
-
5
-
2
19.1
1
28.7
1
7.5
-
4
-
18
26.2
10
13.6
5
12.5
5
38
-
5
24.7
3
20.0
3
10.0
1
12
-
30.6
6
12.7
2
8
5.1
1
17
-
32.5
2
3
9.9
-
18.4
1
6
-
32.3
2
3
5.4
-
12.7
1
6
-
30.9
4
4
4.6
-
20.7
2
10
-
1
31.2
1
17.1
-
11.1
-
2
-
7.0
-
1
2.8
-
34.1
1
2
-
- class="unsortable" style="background:#E9E9E9"
101
27.2
75
18.1
44
12.6
30
250
-
}

Maps

File:1983 Portuguese legislative election district results.svg|Winner and seats by constituency. File:Legislativas portuguesas de 1983 (Mapa).png|Most voted political force by municipality.

Aftermath

Fall of the government

The Central Bloc government had become deeply unpopular by 1984, with the consequences of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout to save public finances and the economy hitting hard on the population. The budget cuts and increasing poverty were creating deep disagreements between PS and PSD, but also within both parties rifts were being formed. In the Social Democrats, these rifts came to a breaking point in February 1985 with party leader Carlos Mota Pinto resigning and announcing he would contest the next leadership ballot. But, Mota Pinto died unexpectedly just days prior to the 1985 PSD congress and Aníbal Cavaco Silva, which was against the Central Bloc, was elected as leader. Shortly after his election as party leader, Cavaco Silva withdraws the PSD support to the Central Bloc, and the government falls. President Ramalho Eanes decides to dissolve Parliament and call a snap election for 6 October 1985.

Notes

| The Social Democratic Party (PSD), the Democratic Social Center (CDS) and the People's Monarchist Party (PPM) contested the 1980 election in a coalition called Democratic Alliance (AD) and won a combined 47.6% of the vote and elected 134 MPs to parliament.

| The Socialist Party (PS), the Left-wing Union for the Socialist Democracy (UEDS) and the Independent Social-Democratic Action (ASDI) contested the 1980 election in a coalition called Republican and Socialist Front (FRS) and won a combined 27.8% of the vote and elected 74 MPs to parliament.

| The Portuguese Communist Party (41 MPs) and Portuguese Democratic Movement (3 MPs) ran in coalition.

| The Socialist Party (PS) results are compared to the combined total share of the vote from the Republican and Socialist Front and from the 66 seats elected by the PS, within the coalition, in the 1980 election.

| The Communist Party (Reconstructed) list only in Europe and Rest of the World.

| AD coalition poll - Results presented here exclude undecideds (10.4%), abstention (2.6%) and doesn't answer (6.6%). With their inclusion results are: AD: 33.8%; PS: 29.0%; APU: 11.2%; Others/Invalid: 6.4%. PSD and CDS separate lists poll - Results presented here exclude undecideds (10.4%), abstention (2.2%) and doesn't answer (6.2%). With their inclusion results are: PS: 34.4%; PSD: 20.4%; APU: 11.4%; CDS: 8.0%; Others/Invalid: 7.0%.

References

(8 September 2015). "Sá Carneiro morre em acidente de aviação". RTP.
(25 August 2020). "Atentado de Camarate. Familiar de vítima acusa republicanos dos EUA". RTP.
[https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/politica/presidente-da-republica-dissolve-assembleia-da-republica-em-1983_v853599 "Presidente da República dissolve Assembleia da República, em 1983 "], ''RTP'', 8 September 2015. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
(9 January 1981). "Tomada de posse do VII Governo Constitucional". RTP.
(29 June 2004). "Pinto Balsemão, primeiro-ministro não eleito". Público.
[https://www.cds.pt/historia.html "História CDS"], ''CDS-PP''. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
[http://analisesocial.ics.ul.pt/documentos/1223396163T3dDP4zc0Vt79YR2.pdf "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.
[https://arquivos.rtp.pt/conteudos/declaracoes-de-pinto-balsemao/ "Declarações de Pinto Balsemão"], ''RTP'', 8 February 1983. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
[https://www.psd.pt/pt/carlos-mota-pinto "PSD Carlos Mota Pinto"], ''PSD''. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
"Constitution of the Portuguese Republic".
"Effective threshold in electoral systems". Trinity College, Dublin.
Gallaher, Michael (1992). "[https://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/staff/michael_gallagher/BJPS1992.pdf Comparing Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Quotas, Thresholds, Paradoxes and Majorities]"
"Eleição da Assembleia da República de 25 de Abril de 1983". CNE - Comissão Nacional de Eleições - Eleição da Assembleia da República de 25 de Abril de 1983.
[https://www.parlamento.pt/DeputadoGP/Paginas/GruposParlamentaresI.aspx Composição dos Grupos Parlamentares/Partidos]
"ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1983 – PSD". EPHEMERA.
"Evolução da Comunicação Política e Eleitoral em Portugal".
"ELEIÇÕES LEGISLATIVAS DE 1985 – CDS". EPHEMERA.
"Comunicação Política em eleições legislativas em Portugal: uma análise a partir dos cartazes eleitorais (1975-2009)". Francisco Teixeira.
(1983). "Debate entre líderes partidários na RDP". RTP.
(1983). "Corpo a corpo esta noite na RTP". Fundação Mário Soares.
(26 May 1983). "Mapa oficial. D.R. n.º 121, Suplemento, Série I de 1983-05-26". Diário da República.
(7 April 2011). "A crise económica que levou Portugal a provar pela primeira vez a receita do FMI". Público.
(15 January 2017). "Mota Pinto, o aliado de Soares que militava no PPD". Público.
(17 May 2009). "19 de Maio de 1985: O líder inesperado". Expresso.
(12 January 2016). "19 de Maio de 1985: O líder inesperado". Expresso.

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