The 2006 Portuguese presidential election was held on 22 January to elect a successor to the incumbent

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 ful ...

Jorge Sampaio Jorge Fernando Branco de Sampaio (; 18 September 1939 – 10 September 2021) was a Portuguese lawyer and politician who was the 18th president of Portugal from 1996 to 2006. A member of the Socialist Party, a party which he led between 1989 a ...

, who was

term-limited A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms an officeholder may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potenti ...

from running for a third consecutive term by the

Constitution of Portugal The present Constitution of Portugal was adopted in 1976 after the Carnation Revolution. It was preceded by a number of constitutions including the first one created in 1822 (following the Liberal Revolution of 1820), 1826 (drawn up by King ...

. The result was a victory in the first round for

Aníbal Cavaco Silva Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, GCC, GColL, 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 March 2016. He had been previously prime minister of Portugal fro ...

of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

candidate, the former

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 not ...

, won 50.54 percent of the vote in the first round, just over the

majority A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from #Related terms, related terms, is more than half of the total.Dictionary definitions of ''majority'' aMerriam-Webster runoff election The two-round system (TRS), also known as runoff voting, second ballot, or ballotage, is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. It generally ensures a majoritarian resul ...

. It was the first time in which a right-wing candidate was elected President of the Republic since the 1974

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lisbo ...

Voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford Unive ...

was 61.53 percent for eligible voters.

Procedure

Any Portuguese citizen over 35 years old has the opportunity to run for president. In order to do so it is necessary to gather between 7500 and 15000 signatures and submit them to the

Portuguese Constitutional Court The Constitutional Court ( pt, Tribunal Constitucional, ) is a special court, defined by the Portuguese Constitution as part of the judicial branch of the Portuguese political organization. Unlike the rest of the country's courts, the Constituti ...

. According to the

Portuguese Constitution The present Constitution of Portugal was adopted in 1976 after the Carnation Revolution. It was preceded by a number of constitutions including the first one created in 1822 (following the Liberal Revolution of 1820), 1826 (drawn up by King ...

, to be elected, a candidate needs a majority of votes. If no candidate gets this majority there will take place a second round between the two most voted candidates.

Political context

In the presidential election of 14 January 2001, the outgoing Socialist

was re-elected in the first round with 55% of votes. Because he was term-limited, he was forbidden, by the Constitution, to run for a third consecutive term. In the parliamentary elections of 20 February 2005, the Socialist Party, led by

José Sócrates José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, GCIH (born 6 September 1957), commonly known as José Sócrates (), is a Portuguese politician who was the prime minister of Portugal from 12 March 2005 to 21 June 2011. For the second half of 2007, he ...

, won for the first time in its history an absolute majority of seats, while the

led by

Pedro Santana Lopes Pedro Miguel de Santana Lopes GCC (; born 29 June 1956) is a Portuguese lawyer and politician, who is the current president of the Municipal Chamber of Figueira da Foz. He most notably served as prime minister of Portugal from 2004 to 2005. ...

fell below 30%, their worst result since 1983. To cope with the bad fiscal situation, the government introduced a policy of fiscal restraint, combining higher taxes, lower public treatments and privatizations. Adding to this, a bad summer in terms of wildfires put more pressure in the government. This policies were not popular and as a result, the Socialists were defeated in the

local elections In many parts of the world, local elections take place to select office-holders in local government, such as mayors and councillors. Elections to positions within a city or town are often known as "municipal elections". Their form and conduct vary ...

on 9 October 2005. In the follow up for the presidential elections, the Socialists decided to nominate their former secretary-general,

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 presid ...

, President of the Republic between 1986 and 1996. This decision divided the party, which led Manuel Alegre, a member of the party parliamentary group, to announce his candidature as an independent. The Social Democratic Party opted to support their former leader Aníbal Cavaco Silva, Prime Minister from 1985 to 1995, and presidential candidate defeated in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

Candidates

Thirteen citizens sought election officially, but only six gathered the 7,500 signatures required under the constitution to be a candidate in the poll:

Official candidates

* Manuel Alegre, a Socialist Party politician who ran without the official backing of his party; *

, Prime Minister from 1985 to 1995, supported by the

and by the People's Party; *

Francisco Louçã Francisco Anacleto Louçã (; born 12 November 1956 in Lisbon) is a Portuguese economist and politician. Biography He is the second son of António Seixas Louçã, a Portuguese Navy Officer, and his wife Noémia da Rocha Neves Anacleto, lawyer, ...

, coordinator of the political commission of the Left Bloc; * Garcia Pereira, Secretary-General of the

PCTP/MRPP The Portuguese Workers' Communist Party/Re-Organized Movement of the Party of the Proletariat ( pt, Partido Comunista dos Trabalhadores Portugueses/Movimento Reorganizativo do Partido do Proletariado, PCTP/MRPP) is a Maoist political party in P ...

; *

, President from 1986 to 1996, the official candidate of the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

; and *

Jerónimo de Sousa Jerónimo Carvalho de Sousa (; born 13 April 1947) is a Portugal, Portuguese politician who served as General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party from the 17th Congress of the Party in November 2004 to the party's National Conference in N ...

, Secretary-General of the

Portuguese Communist Party The Portuguese Communist Party ( pt, Partido Comunista Português, , PCP) is a communist, Marxist–Leninist political party in Portugal based upon democratic centralism. The party also considers itself patriotic and internationalist,Portugue ...

, also supported by the

Ecologist Party "The Greens" The Ecologist Party "The Greens" ( pt, Partido Ecologista "Os Verdes", , PEV) is a Portuguese eco-socialist political party. It is a member of the European Greens and a founding member of the European Federation of Green Parties. It was the fir ...

. All the candidates except for Cavaco Silva are considered to be from the Portuguese political

left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right * L ...

Unsuccessful candidacies

The other potential candidates who, according to the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...

, did not gather enough signatures, were: * Josué Rodrigues Gonçalo Pedro; * Luís Filipe Guerra, leader of the

Humanist Party The Humanist International (also known as the International Humanist Party) is a consortium of political parties adhering to universal humanism (also known as Siloism, after the nickname of the movement's founder), founded in 1989 by over 40 na ...

; * Teresa Lameiro; * Manuela Magno, nuclear physicist; *

Carmelinda Pereira Carmelinda Pereira (born 1948) is a retired teacher and politician from Portugal who represented the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS) in the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic before later becoming the founder of a small Trotskyist party . Earl ...

, leader of the

Workers Party of Socialist Unity Workers Party of Socialist Unity (Portuguese: Partido Operário de Unidade Socialista, , POUS) is a small Trotskyist former political party in Portugal, founded by Aires Rodrigues and Carmelinda Pereira in 1979 after a split from the Portuguese S ...

(POUS); * Luís Botelho Ribeiro; and * Diamantino da Silva;

Campaign period

Party slogans

Candidates' debates

Opinion polling

Results

Summary of the 22 January 2006

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

presidential election results , - !style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;" colspan="2" rowspan="2", Candidates !style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;" rowspan="2", Supporting parties !style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" colspan="2", First round , - !style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;", Votes !style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;", % , - , style="width:10px;background-color:#FF9900;text-align:center;", , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;",

, People's Party , style="text-align:right;", 2,773,431 , style="text-align:right;", 50.54 , - , style="width: 5px" style="background-color:#777777;text-align:center;", , style="text-align:left;", Manuel Alegre , style="text-align:left;",

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

, style="text-align:right;", 1,138,297 , style="text-align:right;", 20.74 , - , style="width: 5px" style="background-color:#FF66FF;text-align:center;", , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:right;", 785,355 , style="text-align:right;", 14.31 , - , style="width: 5px" style="background-color:red;text-align:center;", , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:right;", 474,083 , style="text-align:right;", 8.64 , - , style="width: 5px" style="background-color:#8B0000;text-align:center;", , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;", Left Bloc , style="text-align:right;", 292,198 , style="text-align:right;", 5.32 , - , style="width: 5px" style="background-color:#CC0000;text-align:center;", , style="text-align:left;",

António Garcia Pereira António Pestana Garcia Pereira is a Portuguese lawyer and politician, former leader of the Maoist PCTP/MRPP The Portuguese Workers' Communist Party/Re-Organized Movement of the Party of the Proletariat ( pt, Partido Comunista dos Trabalhado ...

, style="text-align:left;",

Portuguese Workers' Communist Party The Portuguese Workers' Communist Party/Re-Organized Movement of the Party of the Proletariat ( pt, Partido Comunista dos Trabalhadores Portugueses/Movimento Reorganizativo do Partido do Proletariado, PCTP/MRPP) is a Maoist political party in P ...

, style="text-align:right;", 23,983 , style="text-align:right;", 0.44 , - , colspan="3" style="text-align:left;" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", Total valid , width="65" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 5,487,347 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 100.00 , - , style="text-align:right;" colspan="3", Blank ballots , width="65" style="text-align:right;", 59,636 , width="40" style="text-align:right;", 1.07 , - , style="text-align:right;" colspan="3" , Invalid ballots , width="65" style="text-align:right;", 43,149 , width="40" style="text-align:right;", 0.77 , - , colspan="3" style="text-align:left;background-color:#E9E9E9", Total , width="65" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", 5,590,132 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", , - , colspan=3, Registered voters/turnout , , 9,085,339, , 61.53 , - , colspan=5 style="text-align:left;", Source
Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

File:Pt plelection pr 2006.PNG, Strongest candidate by electoral district. (Azores and Madeira not shown) File:Presidenciais 2006 (Mapa).png, Strongest candidate 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 go ...

References

External links

Portuguese Electoral Commission

Official results site, Portuguese Justice Ministry

NSD: European Election Database - Portugal
publishes regional level election data; allows for comparisons of election results, 1990–2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Portuguese Presidential Election, 2006 2006 elections in Portugal

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

January 2006 events in Europe fr:Élections présidentielles portugaises#2006

Procedure

Political context

Candidates

Official candidates

Unsuccessful candidacies

Campaign period

Party slogans

Candidates' debates

Opinion polling

Results

Maps

See also

References

External links