Portuguese legislative election, 1976

25 April 1976

263 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 132 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party

Leader	Mário Soares	Francisco Sá Carneiro
Party	PS	PSD
Leader since	19 April 1973	6 May 1974
Leader's seat	Lisbon^[1]	Porto^[2]
Last election	116 seats, 37.9%	81 seats, 26.4%
Seats won	107	73
Seat change	9	8
Popular vote	1,912,921	1,335,381
Percentage	34.9%	24.4%
Swing	3.0%	2.0%

Prime Minister before election

Vasco de Almeida e Costa (interim)
Independent

Elected Prime Minister

Mário Soares
PS

Portugal
This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Portugal

The Portuguese legislative election of 1976 took place on 25 April, exactly one year after the previous election, and two years after the Carnation Revolution. With a new Constitution approved, the country's main aim was the economical recovery and the strengthen of the democratic conquests.

The election was won again by the Socialist Party and Mário Soares, its leader, became the Prime-Minister of the 1st Constitutional government on 23 July. The lack of a socialist majority forced this party to form an unexpected coalition with the Democratic and Social Center, the party on the right end of the political spectrum at the time. The nature of such coalition, between a party that defended the socialist way to the country and another that voted against the constitution because of its socialist influences surprised most of the Portuguese voters and marked the start of the right-wing turn of the Socialist Party that would soon be attacked by all the left due to the new government measures against the left-wing conquests of the revolution, mainly the agrarian reform.

The Social Democratic Party was the second most voted party and the Portuguese Communist Party achieved a relevant increase in the voting, showing its growing influence, mainly in the south of the country.

Parties

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), Álvaro Cunhal
Socialist Party (PS), Mário Soares
Social Democratic Party (PSD), Francisco Sá Carneiro
Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), Freitas do Amaral

National summary of votes and seats

Summary of the 25 April 1976 Assembly of the Republic elections results
Parties		Votes	%	±	Seats
Parties		Votes	%	±	1975	1976	±	%	±
	Socialist	1,912,921	34.89	3.0	116	107	9	40.68	5.7
	Social Democratic	1,335,381	24.35	2.0	81	73	8	27.76	4.6
	Democratic and Social Centre	876,077	15.98	8.4	16	42	26	15.97	9.6
	Portuguese Communist Party	788,830	14.39	1.9	30	40	10	15.21	3.2
	People's Democratic Union	91,690	1.67	0.9	1	1	0	0.38	0.0
	People's Socialist Front	42,162	0.77	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Workers' Communist Party	36,200	0.66	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A
	Movement of Socialist Left	31,332	0.57	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Christian Democratic Party	29,874	0.54	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A
	People's Monarchist Party	28,320	0.52	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	Internationalist Communist League	16,269	0.30	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0
	PCP(m-l)	15,830	0.29	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A
	Worker-Peasant Alliance	15,778	0.29	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A
	Revolutionary Socialist Party	5,171	0.09	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	0.00	N/A
Total valid		5,225,835	95.30	2.3	250^[A]	263	13	100.00	0.0
Invalid ballots		257,696	4.70	2.3
Total (turnout 83.53%)		5,483,461	100.00	8.2
^A Portuguese Democratic Movement won 5 seats and the Independent Democratic Association of Macau won 1 seat in the 1975 election. Both parties did not contested this election.
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share

PS			34.89%
PSD			24.35%
CDS			15.98%
PCP			14.39%
UDP			1.67%
FSP			0.77%
Others/Invalides			7.96%

Parliamentary seats

PS			40.68%
PSD			27.76%
CDS			15.97%
PCP			15.51%
UDP			0.38%

Distribution by constituency

Results of the 1976 election of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic
by constituency
Constituency	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	Total S
Constituency	PS		PSD		CDS		PCP		UDP		Total S
Angra (Azores Central Group)	30.4	1	51.8	1	12.1	-	1.5	-			2
Aveiro	30.8	5	35.2	6	22.5	4	3.7	-	0.9	-	15
Beja	32.0	2	8.2	-	4.2	-	44.0	4	2.2	-	6
Braga	32.3	6	28.6	5	21.2	4	4.2	-	1.0	-	15
Bragança	22.6	1	33.3	2	28.3	2	2.7	-	0.8	-	5
Castelo Branco	36.4	3	22.6	2	19.9	2	6.7	-	1.1	-	7
Coimbra	40.9	6	26.7	4	12.5	1	7.3	1	1.2	-	12
EvoraÉvora	30.3	2	9.2	-	8.0	-	35.0	4	2.6	-	6
Faro	44.6	6	19.3	2	6.8	-	14.5	1	2.6	-	9
Funchal (Madeira)	24.9	1	53.0	4	13.3	1	1.5	-	1.3	-	6
Guarda	25.2	2	25.7	2	32.1	2	2.9	-	1.1	-	6
Horta (Azores Western Group)	34.2	-	57.0	1	4.3	-	1.5	-			1
Leiria	31.1	4	31.2	4	19.4	2	7.3	1	1.0	-	11
Lisbon	38.3	25	16.4	10	13.2	8	21.8	14	2.6	1	58
Ponta Delgada (Azores Eastern Group)	35.4	1	45.6	2	11.8	-	1.5	-			3
Portalegre	41.9	3	10.1	-	13.9	-	22.0	1	1.0	-	4
Porto	40.7	18	27.0	11	15.7	6	8.4	3	1.5	-	38
Santarém	38.5	6	19.5	3	13.9	2	16.1	2	1.7	-	13
Setúbal	32.2	7	8.4	1	4.4	-	44.4	9	2.8	-	17
Viana do Castelo	25.5	2	32.8	3	23.5	2	6.6	-	0.9	-	7
Vila Real	26.3	2	39.0	4	18.3	1	3.1	-	0.9	-	7
Viseu	23.0	3	32.2	4	31.2	4	2.3	-	0.9	-	11
zEurope	46.1	1	32.2	1	6.9	-	10.1	-	0.8	-	2
zRest of the World	6.3	-	53.2	1	33.7	1	1.4	-	0.4	-	2
Total	34.9	107	24.4	73	16.0	42	14.4	40	1.7	1	263
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

References

External links

Elections and referendums in Portugal

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* Constituent Assembly ** Indirect elections See also: Elections in Azores Madeira

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