The 1985 Portuguese legislative election took place on 6 October. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic. In June of the same year, the then incumbent Prime Minister,

Mário Soares Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares, GColTE, GCC, GColL (; 7 December 1924 – 7 January 2017) was a Portuguese politician, who served as prime minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the 17th pres ...

, resigned from the job due to the lack of parliamentary support, the government was composed by a coalition of the two major parties, the center-right Social Democratic and the center-left Socialist, in what was called the ''Central Bloc'', however this was an unstable balance of forces and several members of each party opposed such alliance. The new leader of the Social Democratic Party, Cavaco Silva, elected in May, was among those that never supported such alliance, and short after being elected leader of the party made the coalition fall in July.

didn't run again and resigned as party leader, as he decided to run for the 1986 Presidential elections. The PS nominated Almeida Santos, minister of state in Soares government, as intern leader and as the party candidate for Prime Minister. A new election was called by the President and the Social Democrats won with a short majority and Cavaco became the Prime-Minister. The election was the first of three consecutive election victories for the Social Democratic Party. Meanwhile, a new party had been founded by supporters of the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Ramalho Eanes, the Democratic Renewal Party, led by Hermínio Martinho that surprisingly gained 45 MPs and more than one million votes in the election and became the parliamentary support of the Cavaco's government until 1987, when it removed its support, making Cavaco fall. The Communists and the Socialists lost votes and MPs, and the left would only return to the government ten years later, in 1995.

Background

Leadership changes

PSD 1985 leadership election

By 1985, deep divisions were consuming the PSD regarding their role in the

Central Bloc Central Bloc () is the name given in Portugal to the grand coalition of the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries ...

government with the PS. Then deputy

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

and PSD leader Carlos Mota Pinto, resigned from the government and the party's leadership and a snap party congress was called. But, Mota Pinto, who was expected to run for the leadership in the snap congress, died suddenly just 10 days before the start of the congress in

Figueira da Foz Figueira da Foz (), also known as Figueira for short, is a city and a municipality in the Coimbra District, in Portugal. Practically at the midpoint of the Iberian Peninsula's Atlantic coast, it is located at the mouth of the Mondego River, we ...

João Salgueiro João is the Portuguese equivalent of the given name John. The diminutive is Joãozinho and the feminine is Joana. It is widespread in Portuguese-speaking countries. Notable people with the name are enumerated in the sections below. Kings ...

, the candidate from "Mota Pinto's wing" was expected to win easily, but former finance minister

Aníbal Cavaco Silva Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, Order of Christ (Portugal), GCC, Order of Liberty, GColL, Order of Prince Henry, GColIH (; born 15 July 1939) is a Portuguese economist who served as the 19th president of Portugal, in office from 9 March 2006 to 9 ...

surprised the party by announcing a late candidacy, in what is now known as the "Running-in of Cavaco's new Citroën". Cavaco Silva had the support of the wings against the Central Bloc, and against all odds he defeated Salgueiro by just 57 votes. 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", % , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

, align=right , 422 , align=right , 53.6 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

, align=right , 365 , align=right , 46.4 , - , - style="background-color:#E9E9E9" , colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" , Turnout , align=right , 787 , align=center , , - , colspan="4" align=left, Source: Results

PS 1985 nomination selection

After the fall of the

government,

was acclaimed as the PS candidate for the 1986 Presidential election, and shortly after,

António Almeida Santos Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular m ...

was unanimously selected as the party's candidate for Prime Minister in the 1985 general elections. , - style="background-color:#E9E9E9" ! align="center" colspan=2 style="width: 60px", Candidate ! align="center" style="width: 50px", Votes ! align="center" style="width: 50px", % , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

, align=center , , align=right , 100.0 , - , - style="background-color:#E9E9E9" , colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" , Turnout , align=right , , align=center , , - , colspan="4" align=left, 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 A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...

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

district magnitude An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other pol ...

. The use of the

d'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highes ...

makes for a higher effective threshold than certain other allocation methods such as the

Hare quota The Hare quota (also known as the simple quota) is a formula used under some forms of proportional representation. In these voting systems the quota is the number of votes that guarantees a candidate, or a party in some cases, captures a seat. T ...

or Sainte-Laguë method, which are more generous to small parties. For these elections, and compared with the 1983 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 3rd legislature (1983–1985) and that also partook in the election:

Campaign period

Party slogans

Candidates' debates

Opinion polling

The following table shows the opinion polls of voting intention of the Portuguese voters before the election. Those parties that are listed were represented in parliament (1983-1985). Included is also the result of the Portuguese general elections in 1983 and 1985 for reference.

National summary of votes and seats

, - , colspan=11, AR Eleicoes 1985

, - ! rowspan="2" colspan=2 style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;" , Parties ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , Votes ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , % ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , ± ! colspan="5" style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:center;" , MPs ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , MPs %/
votes % , - style="background-color:#E9E9E9" ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:center;",

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:center;", 1985 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , ± ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , % ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , ± , - , , 1,732,288, , 29.87, , 2.7, , 75, , 88, , 13, , 35.20, , 5.2, , 1.18 , - , , 1,204,321, , 20.77, , 15.3, , 101, , 57, , 44, , 22.80, , 17.6, , 1.10 , - , , 1,038,893, , 17.92, , , , , , 45, , , , 18.00, , , , 1.00 , - , , 898,281, , 15.49, , 2.6, , 44, , 38, , 6, , 15.20, , 2.4, , 0.98 , - , , 577,580, , 9.96, , 2.6, , 30, , 22, , 8, , 8.80, , 3.2, , 0.88 , - , style="width:10px;background-color:#E2062C;text-align:center;" , , style="text-align:left;" , People's Democratic Union , 73,401, , 1.27, , 0.8, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , , 41,831, , 0.72, , 0.0, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , , 35,238, , 0.61, , 0.4, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , , 19,943, , 0.34, , 0.1, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , , 19,085, , 0.33, , 0.0, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , , 12,749, , 0.22, , 0.2, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , colspan=2 style="text-align:left;background-color:#E9E9E9", Total valid , width="65" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 5,653,610 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 97.49 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 0.1 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 250 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 250 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 0 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 100.00 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 0.0 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", — , - , colspan=2, Blank ballots , 48,709, , 0.84, , 0.1, , colspan=6 rowspan=4, , - , colspan=2, Invalid ballots , 96,610, , 1.67, , 0.1 , - , colspan=2 style="text-align:left;background-color:#E9E9E9", Total , width="65" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 5,798,929 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 100.00 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", , - , colspan=2, Registered voters/turnout , , 7,818,981, , 74.16, , 3.6 , - , colspan=11 style="text-align:left;" , Source
Comissão Nacional de Eleições

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 , PSD !colspan=2 , PS !colspan=2 , PRD !colspan=2 , APU !colspan=2 , CDS , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Azores ) , motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace") , anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores") , image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg , map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union , map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...

, style="background:; color:white;", 48.3 , 3 , 20.1 , 1 , 15.2 , 1 , 4.4 , - , 6.5 , - , 5 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Aveiro , style="background:; color:white;", 38.4 , 6 , 23.0 , 4 , 13.4 , 2 , 6.5 , 1 , 13.5 , 2 , 15 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Beja , 13.7 , 1 , 20.1 , 1 , 11.6 , - , style="background:red; color:white;", 44.9 , 3 , 2.2 , - , 5 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Braga Braga ( , ; cel-x-proto, Bracara) is a city and a municipality, capital of the northwestern Portuguese district of Braga and of the historical and cultural Minho Province. Braga Municipality has a resident population of 193,333 inhabitants (in ...

, style="background:; color:white;", 32.8 , 6 , 21.8 , 4 , 16.8 , 3 , 8.5 , 1 , 14.0 , 2 , 16 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Bragança , style="background:; color:white;", 39.2 , 2 , 22.7 , 1 , 6.9 , - , 5.3 , - , 17.1 , 1 , 4 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Castelo Branco , style="background:; color:white;", 31.2 , 3 , 18.5 , 1 , 24.4 , 2 , 8.9 , - , 9.6 , - , 6 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest cit ...

, style="background:; color:white;", 29.5 , 4 , 28.5 , 3 , 16.9 , 2 , 10.1 , 1 , 8.6 , 1 , 11 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Évora Évora ( , ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. It has 53,591 inhabitants (2021), in an area of 1307.08 km2. It is the historic capital of the Alentejo and serves as the seat of the Évora District. Due to its well-preserved old ...

, 19.1 , 1 , 14.3 , 1 , 15.8 , 1 , style="background:red; color:white;", 41.2 , 2 , 3.3 , - , 5 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Faro , style="background:; color:white;", 28.4 , 3 , 22.3 , 2 , 20.5 , 2 , 15.4 , 2 , 6.1 , - , 9 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Guarda , style="background:; color:white;", 33.6 , 2 , 23.3 , 2 , 10.9 , - , 5.2 , - , 19.5 , 1 , 5 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Leiria Leiria (; cel-x-proto, ɸlāryo) is a city and municipality in the Central Region of Portugal. It is the 2nd largest city in that same region, with a municipality population of 128,640 (as of 2021) in an area of . It is the seat of its own dist ...

, style="background:; color:white;", 38.6 , 5 , 19.6 , 2 , 15.3 , 2 , 7.9 , 1 , 12.2 , 1 , 11 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...

, style="background:; color:white;", 25.6 , 15 , 19.8 , 12 , 21.3 , 13 , 20.1 , 12 , 8.1 , 4 , 56 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Madeira ) , anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira") , song_type = Regional anthem , image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg , map_alt=Location of Madeira , map_caption=Location of Madeira , subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...

, style="background:; color:white;", 56.8 , 4 , 13.2 , 1 , 9.7 , - , 3.2 , - , 7.8 , - , 5 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Portalegre , 20.9 , 1 , 23.7 , 1 , 18.9 , - , style="background:red; color:white;", 25.2 , 1 , 4.9 , - , 3 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropo ...

, style="background:; color:white;", 29.3 , 12 , 23.6 , 10 , 20.5 , 8 , 12.1 , 5 , 9.8 , 4 , 39 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Santarém , style="background:; color:white;", 27.8 , 4 , 18.6 , 2 , 23.8 , 3 , 16.4 , 2 , 7.7 , 1 , 12 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Setúbal Setúbal (, , ; cel-x-proto, Caetobrix) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population in 2014 was 118,166, occupying an area of . The city itself had 89,303 inhabitants in 2001. It lies within the Lisbon metropolitan area. In the t ...

, 15.4 , 3 , 16.5 , 3 , 20.4 , 4 , style="background:red; color:white;", 38.2 , 7 , 3.8 , - , 17 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Viana do Castelo , style="background:; color:white;", 33.5 , 3 , 18.4 , 1 , 16.2 , 1 , 8.2 , - , 16.6 , 1 , 6 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Vila Real Vila Real () is the capital and largest city of the Vila Real District, in the North region. It is also the seat of the Douro intermunicipal community and of the Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro historical province. The Vila Real municipality cover ...

, style="background:; color:white;", 42.2 , 3 , 23.0 , 2 , 8.6 , - , 5.9 , - , 12.5 , 1 , 6 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Viseu Viseu () is a city and municipality in the Centro Region of Portugal and the capital of the district of the same name, with a population of 100,000 inhabitants, and center of the Viseu Dão Lafões intermunipical community, with 267,633 inhabi ...

, style="background:; color:white;", 37.7 , 5 , 20.0 , 2 , 10.9 , 1 , 5.0 , - , 19.9 , 2 , 10 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Europe , style="background:; color:white;", 24.3 , 1 , 24.2 , 1 , 7.1 , - , 18.8 , - , 17.3 , - , 2 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Outside Europe , style="background:; color:white;", 40.5 , 1 , 7.8 , - , 3.3 , - , 2.6 , - , 37.9 , 1 , 2 , - , - class="unsortable" style="background:#E9E9E9" , style="text-align:left;" , Total , style="background:; color:white;", 29.9 , 88 , 20.8 , 57 , 17.9 , 45 , 15.5 , 38 , 10.0 , 22 , 250 , - , colspan=12 style="text-align:left;" , Source
Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

Legislativas portuguesas de 1985 (Mapa).png, Most voted political force by

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

Aftermath

Fall of the government

In early 1987, a trip of a Portuguese parliamentary delegation to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

created a diplomatic issue as the delegation also traveled to

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...

, a territory that wasn't recognized by the Portuguese State as a Soviet controlled territory. Because of this incident, Opposition parties accused Cavaco Silva of disallowing Parliament and, shortly after, the Democratic Renewal Party proposed a motion of no confidence against the Government, and the party's leader, Hermínio Martinho, communicated to

their intentions. At first, the

Socialists Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the econ ...

weren't supportive of the PRD's motion, but, last minute negociations led the PS to also support the motion. On 3 April 1987, the motion passes by a 134 to 108 vote and the government falls. Mário Soares was in an official trip to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

when he was informed, which unpleased the President, and he then returned to Lisbon to meet with parties. The PS, PRD and PCP proposed an alternative government to the PSD minority, but Soares rejected and called a snap general election for 19 July 1987, which resulted in a landslide PSD majority government.

Notes

References

Sources

External links

Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Centro de Estudos do Pensamento Político
{{DEFAULTSORT:Portuguese legislative election, 1985

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

Legislative A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...

October 1985 events in Europe