20 February 2005 2009 → 24 September 2004 29 June 2004 96 seats, 37.8% 105 seats, 40.2% | Registered 8,944,508 0.5% 29 June 2004 27 November 2004 Start date February 20, 2005 | |
 | ||
Turnout 5,747,834 (64.3%)
2.8 pp Winner José Sócrates | ||
The Portuguese legislative election of 2005 took place on 20 February. These elections were called after the decision of President Jorge Sampaio on 30 November 2004 to dissolve the Parliament as an answer to the political instability caused by the government led by Pedro Santana Lopes (PSD) in coalition with the PP. Santana Lopes had become Prime Minister in July 2004, after José Manuel Durão Barroso left the country in order to become President of the European Commission in a decision that divided the country, because many Portuguese were expecting that the Socialist President Jorge Sampaio would dissolve the Parliament and call a legislative election. However, after five unstable months, President Sampaio decided to dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections. The Prime Minister nevertheless announced the resignation of the government on 11 December, in an action with no practical effects whatsoever.
Contents
The campaign started officially on 6 February and the major topics were the problematic state of the country's finances, unemployment, abortion and even José Sócrates's alleged homossexuality.
Headed by Sócrates, the centre-left Socialist Party (PS) won the election with a landslide victory, winning in 19 of the 22 electoral constituencies, including in districts (such as Viseu and Bragança) that historically voted for the right. The Socialist Party conquered its first absolute majority, receiving 45% of the electorate vote and 52% of the seats in the Parliament. The centre-right parties, mainly the Social Democrats, were punished for their performance in government, and lost more than 11% of votes they had garnered in the previous election. On the left, the Left Bloc achieved its best result ever and made the biggest climb, gaining 5 MPs, while the CDU (Communists and the Greens) gained 2 MPs and reversed their downward trend of the last elections.
Voter turnout was the highest since 1995, as 64.3% of the electorate cast a ballot.
Electoral system
The Parliament of the Portuguese Republic consists of a single chamber, the Assembly of the Republic, composed of 230 members directly elected by universal adult suffrage for a maximum term of four years. Assembly members represent the entire country, rather than the constituencies in which they were elected. Governments require majority support in the Assembly in order to remain in office.
Each one of Portugal's eighteen administrative districts, as well as each one of the country's two autonomous regions - the Azores and Madeira - is an electoral constituency. Portuguese voters residing outside the national territory are grouped into two electoral constituencies - Europe and the rest of the world - each one of which elects two Assembly members. The remaining 226 seats are allocated among the national territory constituencies in proportion to their number of registered electors.
Political parties and party coalitions may present lists of candidates. The lists are closed, so electors may not choose individual candidates in or alter the order of such lists. Electors cast a ballot for a single list. The seats in each constituency are divided among parties according to the largest average method of proportional representation (PR), conceived by the Belgian mathematician Victor d'Hondt in 1899. Although there is no statutory threshold for participation in the allocation of Assembly seats, there is an effective threshold at the constituency level that depends on the district magnitude. The use of the d'Hondt method makes for a higher effective threshold than certain other allocation method such as the Hare quota or Sainte-Laguë method, which are more generous to small parties.
Parties
The parties that partook in the election, and their leaders, were:
With 230 seats the results are:
José Sócrates, leader of the Socialist Party, was nominated Prime Minister.
Opinion Polling
The following table shows the opinion polls of voting intention of the Portuguese voters before the election. Those parties that are listed are currently represented in parliament. Included is also the result of the Portuguese general elections in 2002 and 2005 for reference.