2002 Portuguese legislative election

The 2002 Portuguese legislative election took place on 17 March. The election renewed all 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

This election was called following the resignation of then incumbent Prime Minister António Guterres, after the defeat of the Socialist Party in the 2001 local elections. That fact, plus the problematic state of the country's finances, were the main arguments of the right-wing parties, which led them to be the favourites to win the election.

With just over 40 percent of the votes cast, the Social Democrats (PSD) regained the status as the largest political force in Portugal, although the Socialists (PS) won almost 38 percent of the vote. This was the closest legislative election in Portuguese democracy until 2024. This short distance also appears in the electoral map, with each party winning eleven of the 22 districts, while the PS won the two most populous, Lisbon and Porto. As a result, the Social Democrats fail to win the absolute majority they had between 1987 and 1995, despite having requested it during the campaign.

As no party gained a majority, the Social Democrats formed a coalition with the right-wing People's Party (CDS–PP), which had a fairly solid performance, polling in third place. The left-wing Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU) achieved its lowest result up to that point, being surpassed by CDS–PP and finishing third in its traditional strongholds of Évora and Setúbal. The Left Bloc (BE) gained just one MP. Voter turnout was slightly higher than it was in 1999, as 61.5 percent of the electorate cast a ballot.