The 1976 Portuguese legislative election was held on Sunday 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 economic recovery and strengthening its democratic institutions. The election renewed all 263 members of the Assembly of the Republic. The Socialist Party won a plurality of votes, almost 35%, and legislative seats, and its leader

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 ...

became the Prime Minister of the 1st Constitutional government on 23 July 1976. The lack of a socialist majority forced his party to form an unexpected coalition with the Democratic and Social Center, a right-wing party. The nature of this coalition, between a socialist party and a conservative party that voted against the new constitution because of its socialist influences, surprised most Portuguese voters and marked the start of the Socialist Party's right-wing turn that would soon be attacked by all the left due to the new government's measures against left-wing reforms following the Carnation Revolution, mainly concerning

agrarian reform Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land (see land reform) or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land ...

, in what was called the PS' putting "Socialism in the drawer". The Social Democratic Party (then known as the ''Democratic People's Party'', PPD) won the second most votes and seats, 24% of the votes, but polled 10 points below the PS. The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) achieved considerable gains that reflected its growing influence, mainly in the south of the country, gaining 14% of the votes. The big surprise in the elections was the strong showing of the Democratic and Social Center (CDS), which polled ahead of PCP and gathered 16% of the votes. Only 19 years later, in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

, would the CDS surpass the PCP in number of votes.

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 Univ ...

fell to 83.5%, compared with the 91.7% just a year before.

Background

1975 Força companheiro Vasco Henrique Matos

Ongoing Revolutionary Process

The previous elections, held on April 25, 1975, elected a new assembly to write a new Constitution. The election results gave the two main moderate parties (PS and PPD) a clear majority in Parliament, with almost 38% for the PS and more than 26% for the PPD. The PCP achieved a weak result, just 12.5%, while the CDS polled ahead of the MDP. The election results started a conflict of legitimacy between parties, the Armed Forces Movement and the Revolutionary Council. It was the start of the Ongoing Revolutionary Process, which culminated in the Hot Summer of 1975. On May 1, 1975, the PS and the PCP held separate rallies and some violent clashes occurred between PS and PCP supporters. A few days later, in what was called "The República case", far-left supporters invaded the headquarters of República newspaper. The reason was a strike by the typographers and other workers, many close to the far-left UDP, accusing the editorial board of being too aligned with the PS. The case drew widespread international attention, and the PS started a full blown attack against the PCP and Prime Minister Vasco Gonçalves government. Positions become extreme as Vasco Gonçalves led the Ongoing Revolutionary Process. He started facing big opposition from the so-called "reactionaries", (the Catholic Church, groups close to the former Estado Novo regime and, unofficially, from the PS, PPD and CDS.), therefore, Vasco Gonçalves continued and forced his Democratic socialism policies with the nationalization of huge parts of the Portuguese economy.

Hot Summer of 1975

By the beginning of the summer of 1975, the country was deeply divided. The "Hot summer of 1975" was starting. During this period, huge clashes between left and right supporters spread all across the country, some with big violence. The possibility of the country entering in a full blown

Civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

was feared by many. On 19 July 1975, the PS held a massive rally in Lisbon, with the help of the Catholic Church and others, to fight against the PCP and Vasco Gonçalves government.

, PS leader, accused the Gonçalves government, and those who support it, of being "Paranoids", "Demented" and "Irresponsibles who do not represent the Portuguese people". During the summer of 1975, headquarters of the PCP, and other left-wing parties, in many cities in the North and Center of the country were vandalized and destroyed. Many leftwing supporters were also violently beaten by anti-left protesters. The violence and increased tensions across the country were damaging Vasco Gonçalves leadership in the government and divisions between the Armed Forces Movement and the Revolutionary Council were starting to show. When COPCON commander,

Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho Otelo Nuno Romão Saraiva de Carvalho, GCL (; 31 August 1936 – 25 July 2021) was a Portuguese military officer. He was the chief strategist of the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon. After the Revolution, Otelo assumed leadership roles in t ...

, withdrew his support from Gonçalves, the government was on its last days. On 20 September, Gonçalves leaves the government and Pinheiro de Azevedo is nominated as Prime Minister. Shortly after, on 26 September, the assault of the Spanish embassy in Lisbon by far-left supporters, in retaliation to the attacks on left-wing parties headquarters in the North and Center, drew widespread attention as it was broadcast by US network

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

25 November Coup and normalization

The new government was unable to control the tensions in the country and by mid November the government made the extraordinary announcement that they were on strike because there were no conditions to govern the country. Just before this announcement, construction workers unions surrounded Parliament and blocked MPs from leaving the building for two days. All of this culminated in the events of the Coup of 25 November 1975. The coup was an attempted by left-wing activists who hoped to hijack the

Portuguese transition to democracy Portugal's redemocratization process started with the Carnation Revolution of 1974. It ended with the enactment of the Current Portuguese Constitution in 1976. Background: the Salazar-Caetano era The republic was replaced by a military dict ...

in favor of Communists. The coup failed and shortly after a counter-coup led by Ramalho Eanes, a pro-democracy moderate, and supported by PS leader Mário Soares, re-established the democratic process. By March 1976, the Constitutional Assembly finally drafted the Constitution text and was sent to approval in April 1976. The Constitution draft was heavily ideological, with many references to Socialism and with many phrases that echoed

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

's Communist Manifesto. On 2 April 1976, the new Constitution was approved with the votes of all parties with the exception of CDS, which voted against citing the ideological content of the document. However, the party agreed to abide by it in the interim.

Electoral system

The Assembly of the Republic has 263 members elected to four-year terms. The total number of MPs increased to 263 from the 1975 total of 250 MPs. 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 132 (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 1975 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 Constitutional Assembly (1975–1976) and that also, some, contested the elections:

Campaign period

Party slogans

Candidates' debates

The day after the elections, a round table was held on

RTP1 RTP1 (''RTP um'') is a Portuguese free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP). It is the company's flagship television channel, and is known for broadcasting mainst ...

, moderated by Carlos Veiga Pereira, on the electoral results, with the participation of Mário Soares (

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 ...

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 ...

, ( Social Democratic Party),

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 ...

( Social Democratic Center), and Filipe Faria ( UDP). Álvaro Cunhal (

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,Portu ...

) declined to participate in the roundtable.

Results

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 , PPD !colspan=2 , CDS !colspan=2 , PCP !colspan=2 , UDP , - , style="text-align:left;" , Angra do Heroísmo , 30.4 , 1 , style="background:; color:white;", 51.8 , 1 , 12.1 , - , 1.5 , - , colspan="2" bgcolor="#AAAAAA", , 2 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Aveiro , 30.8 , 5 , style="background:; color:white;", 35.2 , 6 , 22.5 , 4 , 3.7 , - , 0.9 , - , 15 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Beja , 32.0 , 2 , 8.2 , - , 4.2 , - , style="background:red; color:white;", 44.0 , 4 , 2.2 , - , 6 , - , 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;", 32.3 , 6 , 28.6 , 5 , 21.2 , 4 , 4.2 , - , 1.0 , - , 15 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Bragança , 22.6 , 1 , style="background:; color:white;", 33.3 , 2 , 28.3 , 2 , 2.7 , - , 0.8 , - , 5 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Castelo Branco , style="background:; color:white;", 36.4 , 3 , 22.6 , 2 , 19.9 , 2 , 6.7 , - , 1.1 , - , 7 , - , 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;", 40.9 , 6 , 26.7 , 4 , 12.5 , 1 , 7.3 , 1 , 1.2 , - , 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 ...

, 30.3 , 2 , 9.2 , - , 8.0 , - , style="background:red; color:white;", 43.2 , 4 , 2.6 , - , 6 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Faro , style="background:; color:white;", 44.6 , 6 , 19.3 , 2 , 6.8 , - , 14.5 , 1 , 2.6 , - , 9 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Funchal Funchal () is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugal's Autonomous Region of Madeira, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The city has a population of 105,795, making it the sixth largest city in Portugal. Because of its high ...

, 24.9 , 1 , style="background:; color:white;", 53.0 , 4 , 13.3 , 1 , 1.5 , - , 1.3 , - , 6 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Guarda , 25.2 , 2 , 25.7 , 2 , style="background:; color:white;", 32.1 , 2 , 2.9 , - , 1.1 , - , 6 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Horta , 34.2 , - , style="background:; color:white;", 57.0 , 1 , 4.3 , - , 1.5 , - , colspan="2" bgcolor="#AAAAAA", , 1 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Leiria , 31.1 , 4 , style="background:; color:white;", 31.2 , 4 , 19.4 , 2 , 7.3 , 1 , 1.0 , - , 11 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Lisbon , style="background:; color:white;", 38.3 , 25 , 16.4 , 10 , 13.2 , 8 , 21.8 , 14 , 2.6 , 1 , 58 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

Ponta Delgada Ponta Delgada (; ) is the largest municipality ('' concelho'') and economic capital of the Autonomous Region of the Azores in Portugal. It is located on São Miguel Island, the largest and most populous in the archipelago. As of 2021, it has 67, ...

, 35.4 , 1 , style="background:; color:white;", 45.6 , 2 , 11.8 , - , 1.5 , - , colspan="2" bgcolor="#AAAAAA", , 3 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Portalegre , style="background:; color:white;", 41.9 , 3 , 10.1 , - , 13.9 , - , 22.0 , 1 , 1.0 , - , 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:; color:white;", 40.7 , 18 , 27.0 , 11 , 15.7 , 6 , 8.4 , 3 , 1.5 , - , 38 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Santarém , style="background:; color:white;", 38.5 , 6 , 19.5 , 3 , 13.9 , 2 , 16.1 , 2 , 1.7 , - , 13 , - , 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 ...

, 32.2 , 7 , 8.4 , 1 , 4.4 , - , style="background:red; color:white;", 44.4 , 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, ...

, 25.5 , 2 , style="background:; color:white;", 32.8 , 3 , 23.5 , 2 , 6.6 , - , 0.9 , - , 7 , - , 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 ...

, 26.3 , 2 , style="background:; color:white;", 39.0 , 4 , 18.3 , 1 , 3.1 , - , 0.9 , - , 7 , - , 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 ...

, 23.0 , 3 , style="background:; color:white;", 32.2 , 4 , 31.2 , 4 , 2.3 , - , 0.9 , - , 11 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Europe , style="background:; color:white;", 46.1 , 1 , 32.2 , 1 , 6.9 , - , 10.1 , - , 0.8 , - , 2 , - , style="text-align:left;" , Rest of the World , 6.3 , - , style="background:; color:white;", 53.2 , 1 , 33.7 , 1 , 1.4 , - , 0.4 , - , 2 , - , - class="unsortable" style="background:#E9E9E9" , style="text-align:left;" , Total , style="background:; color:white;", 34.9 , 107 , 24.4 , 73 , 16.0 , 42 , 14.4 , 40 , 1.7 , 1 , 263 , - , colspan=12 style="text-align:left;" , Source
Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Maps

Legislativas portuguesas de 1976 (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 go ...

Aftermath

Fall of the government

By the fall of 1977, the situation of the Portuguese economy was deteorating. During that year's summer,

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 i ...

asked for a loan from the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...

(IMF) and several austerity measures were implemented like rise of interest rates, devalue of the

Escudo The escudo ( Portuguese: 'shield') is a unit of currency historically used in Portugal and its colonies in South America, Asia, and Africa. It was originally worth 16 silver . The Cape Verdean escudo and the former Portuguese escudo (PTE), eac ...

and budget cuts. However, the policies were quite unpopular and by late 1977, Soares was seeing big opposition in Parliament and, in November 1977, he proposed a big memorandum between parties and associations to seek common economic and social policies, but this was rejected. Because of this rejection, Soares presented a motion of confidence in Parliament, which he lost by a 100 to 159 vote margin. Following this vote, Soares was still able to form a second cabinet, in coalition with the Democratic Social Center (CDS), but it only lasted 8 months and after August 1978, a series of Presidential appointed cabinets were nominated which culminated in the 2 December 1979 snap election.

Notes

References

External links

Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Centro de Estudos do Pensamento Político