2009 Portuguese legislative election

Background

In the February 2005 early elections, the Socialists, under the leadership of José Sócrates, won 45 percent of the votes and 121 MPs, the 1st time the Socialists won a majority and the 1st time a single party won a majority since Cavaco Silva's PSD victory in 1991. The PSD suffered a heavy defeat, achieving their worst results since 1983, and faced with this failure, the then PSD leader and outgoing Prime Minister, Pedro Santana Lopes, resigned from the leadership and called an election for party chair.

During the first months in his government, Sócrates raised taxes to cut the deficit and initiated a policy of strict budgetary rigor. At the same time, he faced a very harsh summer with Wildfires across the country. That same October, the Socialists suffered a heavy defeat in the 2005 local elections, winning just 108 cities, a drop of 4, against the PSD's 158 mayoral holds. The PS was also unable to retake control of Lisbon and Porto. In January 2006, a new president was elected. Aníbal Cavaco Silva, PM between 1985 and 1995, became the first center-right candidate to win a presidential election, although only just. The PS candidate, former PM and President Mário Soares polled a disappointing third place with just 14 v of the votes. In 2007, a referendum for the legalization of abortion was held. After the failure of the 1998 referendum, the Yes side prevailed winning 59 percent of the votes against the No's 41 percent, making abortion legal in Portugal.

While the deficit reduction had been successful, and with the economy growing above 2 percent of GDP, the government faced heavy opposition for its policies, particularly from teachers unions. In March 2008, more than 100,000 teachers protested in Lisbon against Sócrates and his Education minister, Maria de Lurdes Rodrigues.

José Sócrates four-year term was also marred by a series of corruption and sleaze accusations towards the Prime Minister himself, with the two main cases being the Independent affair and the Freeport affair. In the first, Sócrates was accused of obtaining his degree in engineering by irregular means from the Independente University, and this case, plus further irregularities, led to the closure of the university. Several years later, the Public Prosecution office ruled that Sócrates indeed obtained his degree illegally. In the second case, the Freeport affair, Sócrates was accused, as environment minister (1999–2002), of allegedly ignoring environmental restrictions, due to interventions from members of his own family, in order to allow the construction of a shopping mall in Alcochete by the British company Freeport. Regarding this case, the end of a primetime evening news show on TVI network, anchored by Manuela Moura Guedes, also led to accusations of pressure from Sócrates and the PS to end the evening news show as it had several reports on the Freeport affair and an unfavourable coverage towards the Prime Minister. The Freeport affair was ultimately closed due to lack of evidence.

Entering 2009, Portugal was strongly affected by the 2008 financial crisis, and, was in a recession. As a result, the government adopted stimulus measures that worsened the public finances and increased the deficit and the debt. In the European elections of June 7, 2009, the PSD stunned pundits by winning a European election for the first time since 1989, with 31.7 percent of the votes. The Socialists suffered a huge defeat, winning just 26 percent of the votes, a drop of 18 points.

Leadership changes and challenges

PSD 2005 leadership election

In the party's congress in April 2005, Luís Marques Mendes became party leader winning 56 percent of the delegates, against the 44 percent of his rival, Luís Filipe Menezes. The results were the following:

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

CDS–PP 2005 leadership election

CDS–PP leader Paulo Portas, resigned from the leadership following the disappointing result of the party in the 2005 elections saying that "in no civilized country in the world, the difference between Trotskyists and Christian Democrats is one percent", referring to the result of the BE. A snap leadership congress was called to elect a new leader. Two candidates were in the ballot: Telmo Correia, the preferred candidate of Paulo Portas, and José Ribeiro e Castro, more critical of Portas. Ribeiro e Castro was easily elected and the results were the following: |- style="background-color:#E9E9E9" ! align="center" colspan=2 style="width: 60px"|Candidate ! align="center" style="width: 50px"|Votes ! align="center" style="width: 50px"|%

CDS–PP 2007 leadership election

Main article: 2007 CDS – People's Party leadership election

In April 2007, former CDS–PP leader Paulo Portas challenged the then party leader, José Ribeiro e Castro, for the leadership and was elected for his former job by a landslide. The results were the following:

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

PSD 2007 leadership election

Main article: 2007 Portuguese Social Democratic Party leadership election

In the Social Democratic Party, incumbent leader Luís Marques Mendes was being very criticized for his opposition strategy and was left weakened after the PSD disappointing result in the 2007 Lisbon mayoral by-election, where the PSD polled 3rd with less than 16 percent of the votes. Marques Mendes called a snap leadership election and was challenged by his rival in the 2005 PSD congress, Luís Filipe Menezes. Menezes easily defeated Marques Mendes. The results were the following:

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

PSD 2008 leadership election

Main article: 2008 Portuguese Social Democratic Party leadership election

The then PSD leader, Luís Filipe Menezes, elected in September 2007, resigned after just 6 months in the job. In the following leadership elections, held in May 2008, Manuela Ferreira Leite became the first woman to lead a major party in Portugal, winning 38 percent of the votes, against the 31 percent of Pedro Passos Coelho and the 30 percent of Pedro Santana Lopes. The results were the following:

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

Electoral system

The Assembly of the Republic has 230 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 116 (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 2005 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:

Parties

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 10th legislature (2005–2009) and that also partook in the election:

Seat changes

• On 24 October 2007, the Portuguese Communist Party removed their confidence in MP Luísa Mesquita, and one month later, she was expelled from the party. The party had asked her to leave her seat in 2006, something she refused, and a rift between her and the party's central committee was created. She decided to remain as an Independent MP.

• On 17 December 2008, CDS – People's Party MP José Paulo Carvalho announced he was leaving the party, citing "lack of strategy" in the party and an "abdication of the party's fundamental ideas and values". He remained in Parliament as an Independent MP.

Campaign period

Party slogans

Candidates' debates

Opinion polling

Main article: Opinion polling for the 2009 Portuguese legislative election

Voter turnout

The table below shows voter turnout throughout election day including voters from Overseas.

Results

National summary

Distribution by constituency

|- class="unsortable" !rowspan=2|Constituency!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S !rowspan=2|Total S |- class="unsortable" style="text-align:center;" !colspan=2 | PS !colspan=2 | PSD !colspan=2 | CDS–PP !colspan=2 | BE !colspan=2 | CDU |- | 3 | 35.7 | 2

Maps

File:2009 Portuguese legislative election district results.svg|Winner and seats by constituency. File:Legislativas portuguesas de 2009 (Mapa).png|Most voted political force by municipality. File:Pt plelection 2009-2.PNG|First, second and third most voted political force by district. File:Portuguese Districts legislatives 2009.svg|Most voted political force by district or autonomous region.

Aftermath

Fall of the government

By 2010, Portugal was facing a big economic crisis and the Government was forced to implement austerity measures. Plus, Sócrates himself was also involved in a new corruption investigation, Face Oculta, although no accusation was made. Despite the government's announcement of more fiscal restraint policies in order to control public spending, the economy entered in a recession and protests against the government policies began. On 12 March 2011, protests against the Government's austerity measures drew up to 280,000 people just in the streets of Lisbon and Porto alone. By March 2011, the PS Government had presented three Stability and Growth Programs (PECs) and all failed in controlling spending and convincing markets. A forth one, PEC IV, was put for a vote in Parliament on 23 March 2011 but it was rejected by all Opposition parties and only supported by the Socialists.

Before the vote, Prime Minister José Sócrates threatened to resign if the PEC failed to pass. After the result of the vote was announced, Sócrates tendered his resignation to President Aníbal Cavaco Silva. A snap legislative election was then called for 5 June 2011.

Notes

| The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Ecologist Party "The Greens" (PEV) contested the 2005 election in a coalition called Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU) and won a combined 7.5% of the vote and elected 14 MPs to parliament.

| Portuguese Communist Party (13 MPs) and "The Greens" (2 MPs).

| Elected in 2005 in the Social Democratic Party electoral lists.

| Earth Party / Humanist Party joint electoral list only in continental Portugal.

| Earth Party electoral list only in Madeira and Azores.

References

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