Portuguese legislative election, 1985

Portuguese legislative election, 1985

1983 ← 6 October 1985 → 1987

250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 125 seats needed for a majority   First party Second party Third party   Leader Aníbal Cavaco Silva Almeida Santos Hermínio Martinho Party PSD PS PRD Leader since 2 June 1985 13 June 1985 (interim) 10 July 1985 Leader's seat Lisbon Porto Lisbon Last election 75 seats, 27.2% 101 seats, 36.1% New party Seats won 88 57 45 Seat change 13 44 Popular vote 1,732,288 1,204,321 1,038,893 Percentage 29.9% 20.8% 17.9% Swing 2.7% 15.3% New party

Prime Minister before election Mário Soares PS Elected Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva PSD

Portugal

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

Mário Soares
PS

Aníbal Cavaco Silva
PSD

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

The Portuguese legislative election of 1985 took place on 6 October. In June of the same year, the former Prime-Minister, Mário Soares, had resigned from the job due to the lack of parliamentary support, the government was composed by a coalition of the two major parties, the center-right Social Democratic and the center-left Socialist, in what was called the Central Bloc, however this was an unstable balance of forces and several members of each party opposed such alliance. The new leader of the Social Democratic Party, Cavaco Silva, elected in May, was among those that never supported such alliance, and short after being elected leader of the party made the coalition fall in July.

A new election was called by the President and the Social Democrats won with a short majority and Cavaco became the Prime-Minister. The election was the first of three consecutive election victories for the Social Democratic Party. Meanwhile, a new party had been founded by supporters of the President Ramalho Eanes, the Democratic Renewal Party, led by Hermínio Martinho that surprisingly gained 45 MPs in the election and became the parliamentary support of the Cavaco's government until 1987, when it removed its support, making Cavaco fall. The Communists and the Socialists lost votes and MPs and the left would only return to the government ten years later, in 1995.

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

Aníbal Cavaco Silva, leader of the Social Democratic Party, was nominated Prime Minister for the first time.

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 1983 and 1985 for reference.

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