The 1980 Portuguese legislative election took place on 5 October. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic. In January 1980, the Democratic Alliance, which had won the previous election, on 2 December 1979, entered office with

Francisco Sá Carneiro Francisco is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the masculine given name ''Franciscus''. Nicknames In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed "Paco". San Francisco de Asís was known as ''Pater Comunitatis'' (father of ...

leading the government. However, this election was an extraordinary election, and so, in 1980, another election was held. The Democratic Alliance (AD) won, again, and increased the majority they had achieved 10 months before, in December 1979. The AD won almost 48% of the votes and gathered 134 seats, six more. 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 t ...

(PS), now leading a broad coalition called

Republican and Socialist Front Republican and Socialist Front ( pt, Frente Republicana e Socialista, or FRS) was an electoral alliance in Portugal, consisting of the Socialist Party (PS), Leftwing Union for the Socialist Democracy (UEDS) and Independent Social Democratic Actio ...

, got basically the same vote share and seats as in 1979. The Communist led alliance, United People Alliance (APU) lost some ground, gathering almost 17% of the votes, 2% lower than 10 months earlier. Turnout was one the highest ever, almost 84%, and in terms of ballots cast, the more than 6 million votes cast are still, as of 2022, a record in Portuguese elections.

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 m ...

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 poli ...

. 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 highest ...

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 1979 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 second half of the 1st legislature (1976–1980), as the 1979 election was a national by-election, and that also contested the elections:

Campaign period

Party slogans

National summary of votes and seats

, - , colspan=12, AR Eleicoes 1980

, - ! rowspan="2" colspan=3 style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left, Parties ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=Votes ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=% ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=± ! colspan="5" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center", Seats ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , MPs %/
votes % , - style="background-color:#E9E9E9" ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align=center,

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...

! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align=center, 1980 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=± ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=% ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=± , - , style="background-color:lightblue;border-bottom-style:hidden;" rowspan="3", , bgcolor="2A52BE" align="center" , , align=left, Democratic Alliance , 2,706,667, , 44.91, , 2.4, , 121, , 126, , 5, , 50.40, , 2.0, , 1.12 , - , bgcolor="" , , align=left, Social Democratic , 147,644, , 2.45, , 0.1, , 7, , 8, , 1, , 3.20, , 0.4, , 1.31 , - , bgcolor="" , , align=left, Democratic and Social Centre , 13,765, , 0.23, , 0.2, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , - style="background-color:lightblue;" , style="text-align:left;" colspan="3", Total Democratic Alliance , width="65" align="right" style="background-color:lightblue", 2,868,076 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:lightblue", 47.59 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:lightblue", 2.3 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:lightblue", 128 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:lightblue", 134 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:lightblue", 6 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:lightblue", 53.60 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:lightblue", 2.4 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:lightblue", 1.13 , - , style="background-color:#DE98B2;border-bottom-style:hidden;" rowspan="2", , bgcolor="ff3366" align="center" , , align=left,

, 1,606,198, , 26.65, , , , , , 71, , , , 28.40, , , , 1.07 , - , bgcolor="" , , align=left,

Socialist 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 ...

, 67,081, , 1.11, , , , 74, , 3, , , , 1.20, , , , 1.08 , - , - style="background-color:#DE98B2;" , style="text-align:left;" colspan="3", Total Republican and Socialist Front , width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#DE98B2", 1,673,279 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#DE98B2", 27.76 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#DE98B2", 0.4 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#DE98B2", 74 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#DE98B2", 74 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#DE98B2", 0 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#DE98B2", 29.60 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#DE98B2", 0.0 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#DE98B2", 1.07 , - , colspan="2" style="width: 10px" bgcolor=red align="center" , , align=left, United People Alliance , 1,009,505, , 16.75, , 2.0, , 47, , 41, , 6, , 16.40, , 2.4, , 0.98 , - , colspan="2" style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#E2062C align="center" , , align=left, People's Democratic Union , 83,204, , 1.38, , 0.8, , 1, , 1, , 0, , 0.40, , 0.0, , 0.29 , - , colspan="2" style="width: 10px" bgcolor="" , , align=left, Workers Party of Socialist Unity , 83,095, , 1.38, , 1.2, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , colspan="2" style="width: 10px" bgcolor=red align="center" , , align=left,

Revolutionary Socialist Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...

, 60,496, , 1.00, , 0.4, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , colspan="2" style="width: 10px" bgcolor=pink align="center" , , align=left,

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

, 39,408, , 0.65, , , , , , 0, , , , 0.00, , , , 0.0 , - , colspan="2" style="width: 10px" bgcolor="" , , align=left, Workers' Communist Party , 35,409, , 0.59, , 0.3, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , colspan="2" style="width: 10px" bgcolor=yellow align="center" , , align=left, PDC / MIRN/PDP / FN , 23,819, , 0.40, , , , , , 0, , , , 0.00, , , , 0.0 , - , colspan="2" style="width: 10px" bgcolor="" , , align=left, Democratic Party of the Atlantic , 8,529, , 0.14, , , , , , 0, , , , 0.00, , , , 0.0 , - , colspan="2" style="width: 10px" bgcolor=darkred align="center" , , align=left, OCMLP , 3,913, , 0.06, , 0.0, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 0.00, , 0.0, , 0.0 , - , colspan=3 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9", Total valid , width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 5,888,733 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 97.72 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 0.4 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 250 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 250 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 0 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 100.00 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 0 , width="40" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9", — , - , colspan=3, Blank ballots , 34,552, , 0.57, , 0.1, , colspan=6 rowspan=4, , - , colspan=3, Invalid ballots , 103,140, , 1.71, , 0.3 , - , colspan=3 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9", Total , width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 6,026,395 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", 100.00 , width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", , - , colspan=3, Registered voters/turnout , , 7,179,023, , 83.94, , 1.0 , - , colspan=12 align=left , Source
Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Distribution by constituency

, - class="unsortable" !rowspan=2, Constituency!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S !rowspan=2, Total
S , - class="unsortable" style="text-align:center;" !colspan=2 , AD !colspan=2 , FRS !colspan=2 ,

APU APU or Apu may refer to: Film and television * ''The Apu Trilogy'', a series of three Bengali films, directed by Satyajit Ray, with the fictional character Apu Roy, comprising: ** ''Pather Panchali'' (''Song of the Little Road'') (1955), the first ...

!colspan=2 ,

PSD PSD may refer to: Educational bodies * Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, a Pre-K to 12th grade school for Deaf and Hard of Hearing students, located in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania * Philippine School Doha, a Filipino scho ...

!colspan=2 , PS !colspan=2 , UDP , - , 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 ...

, colspan="4" bgcolor="#AAAAAA", , 3.1 , - , style="background:; color:white;", 57.0 , 4 , 27.3 , 1 , 1.3 , - , 5 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Aveiro , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 58.8 , 10 , 27.1 , 4 , 6.8 , 1 , colspan="4" rowspan="11" bgcolor="#AAAAAA", , colspan="2" bgcolor="#AAAAAA", , 15 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Beja , 22.4 , 1 , 21.1 , 1 , style="background:red; color:white;", 47.1 , 3 , 1.3 , - , 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:#2A52BE; color:white;", 54.9 , 9 , 29.3 , 5 , 8.4 , 1 , 0.9 , - , 15 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Bragança , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 65.3 , 3 , 21.3 , 1 , 4.8 , - , 1.0 , - , 4 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Castelo Branco , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 51.0 , 4 , 30.3 , 2 , 10.5 , - , 0.7 , - , 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:#2A52BE; color:white;", 46.1 , 6 , 35.9 , 5 , 9.9 , 1 , 0.8 , - , 12 , - , 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 ...

, 29.2 , 1 , 18.7 , 1 , style="background:red; color:white;", 45.7 , 3 , 0.9 , - , 5 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Faro , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 37.2 , 4 , 34.7 , 4 , 16.7 , 1 , 1.9 , - , 9 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Guarda , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 60.6 , 4 , 26.3 , 1 , 5.0 , - , 0.7 , - , 5 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Leiria , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 59.8 , 7 , 22.7 , 3 , 9.7 , 1 , 1.0 , - , 11 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Lisbon , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 41.6 , 25 , 28.1 , 17 , 23.1 , 13 , 1.7 , 1 , 56 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Madeira , colspan="4" bgcolor="#AAAAAA", , 2.9 , - , style="background:; color:white;", 63.6 , 4 , 16.5 , 1 , 4.5 , - , 5 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Portalegre , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 33.4 , 2 , 32.4 , 1 , 26.1 , 1 , colspan="2" rowspan="9" bgcolor="#AAAAAA", , colspan="2" rowspan="7" bgcolor="#AAAAAA", , 0.7 , - , 4 , - , 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 metropol ...

, style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 46.6 , 19 , 34.3 , 14 , 11.9 , 5 , 1.4 , - , 38 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Santarém , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 42.1 , 6 , 30.4 , 4 , 19.0 , 2 , 1.2 , - , 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 ti ...

, 24.1 , 4 , 23.5 , 4 , style="background:red; color:white;", 44.0 , 9 , 2.8 , - , 17 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Viana do Castelo Viana do Castelo () is a municipality and seat of the district of Viana do Castelo in the Norte Region of Portugal. The population in 2011 was 88,725, in an area of 319.02 km². The urbanized area of the municipality, comprising the city, ...

, style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 59.2 , 5 , 22.8 , 1 , 10.0 , - , 0.7 , - , 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:#2A52BE; color:white;", 62.1 , 5 , 22.8 , 1 , 5.1 , - , 0.8 , - , 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:#2A52BE; color:white;", 66.8 , 8 , 20.9 , 2 , 5.0 , - , 0.6 , - , 10 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Europe , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 49.6 , 1 , colspan="2" rowspan="2" bgcolor="#AAAAAA", , 15.2 , - , 25.4 , 1 , 1.4 , - , 2 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Outside Europe , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 85.5 , 2 , 2.6 , - , 4.0 , - , 0.4 , - , 2 , - , - class="unsortable" style="background:#E9E9E9" , style="text-align:left;" , Total , style="background:#2A52BE; color:white;", 44.9 , 126 , 26.7 , 71 , 16.8 , 41 , 2.5 , 8 , 1.1 , 3 , 1.4 , 1 , 250 , - , colspan=14 style="text-align:left;" , Source
Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

Eleições legislativas portuguesas de 1980.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 go ...

Aftermath

Death of Francisco Sá Carneiro

Just two months after winning the 1980 elections, and while campaigning for the Democratic Alliance's candidate for the December 1980 Presidential election, Prime Minister

and his Defense minister Adelino Amaro da Costa, along with their spouses Snu Abecassis and Maria Vaz Pires, respectively, and the plane's pilot, died in tragic air crash when the small aircraft they were on board crashed and burned in

Camarate Camarate () is a former civil parish in the municipality of Loures, Lisbon District, Portugal. In 2013, the parish merged into the new parish Camarate, Unhos e Apelação. With a population of 23,000 inhabitants in 2001, the parish of Camarate e ...

Loures Loures () is a city and a municipality in Portugal which is part of the District and Metropolitan area of Lisbon. It is the fifth most populous municipality in the country, with a total population of 201,632. History There was early human sett ...

, shortly after taking off from the main runway of

Lisbon Airport Humberto Delgado Airport , informally Lisbon Airport and formally Portela Airport, is an international airport located northeast of the city centre of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. The airport is the main international gateway to Portuga ...

. This tragic air crash sparked a series of conspirancy theories, mainly because of Portugal' involvement in the

Iran–Iraq War The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Ba'athist Iraq, Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations S ...

and the supply of weapons to both Iraq and Iran. Several investigations surrounding the crash were conducted and the official cause of the crash is still a matter of intense debate.

Diogo Freitas do Amaral Diogo Pinto de Freitas do Amaral (; 21 July 1941 – 3 October 2019), known as Freitas do Amaral, was a Portuguese politician and law professor. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 10 January 1980 to 12 January 1981 and from 12 March 2005 t ...

was appointed as Interim Prime Minister until the election of

Francisco Pinto Balsemão Francisco José Pereira Pinto Balsemão (; born 1 September 1937) is a Portuguese businessman, former journalist and retired politician, who served as Prime Minister of Portugal, from 1981 to 1983. Background He is the son of Henrique Patríci ...

Electoral system

Parties

Campaign period

Party slogans

National summary of votes and seats

Distribution by constituency

Maps

Aftermath

Death of Francisco Sá Carneiro

Notes

References

External links

See also