Portuguese legislative election, 1987

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19 July 1987

1991 →

250 seats to the Portuguese Assembly
125 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party

Leader	Aníbal Cavaco Silva	Vítor Constâncio
Party	PSD	PS
Leader since	2 June 1985	29 June 1986
Leader's seat	Lisbon	Lisbon
Last election	88 seats, 29.9%	57 seats, 20.8%
Seats won	148	60
Seat change	60	3
Popular vote	2,850,784	1,262,506
Percentage	50.2%	22.2%
Swing	20.3%	1.4%

Prime Minister before election

Aníbal Cavaco Silva
PSD

Elected Prime Minister

Aníbal Cavaco Silva
PSD

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

Aníbal Cavaco Silva
PSD

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

The Portuguese legislative election of 1987 took place on 19 July. In the previous election, in 1985, the Social Democratic Party had won a minority government managing to survive in coalition with the Democratic and Social Center and the Democratic Renewal Party, and after the approval of a no-confidence motion from the left-wing parties, with the aid of the Democratic Renewal Party, the government fell and Mário Soares, the President at the time, called for a new election.

The PSD was very popular going into the election, and was elected to a landslide majority government—the biggest that a Portuguese party had ever won in a free election. The left-wing Democratic Unity Coalition lost some of its MPs to the Socialist Party and the Democratic Renovator Party lost almost all of its influence, mainly due to its responsibility in the fall of the former government. The right-wing Democratic and Social Center lost almost half of its vote share, due to the effect of tactical voting for the also right-wing, Social Democratic Party. European elections were held on the same day.

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

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

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 1985 and 1987 for reference.

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