Portuguese legislative election, 1987

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Portugal

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

The Portuguese legislative election of 1987 took place on July 19. In the last election, in 1985, the Social Democratic Party had achieved a relative majority, thing that made its government very weak, managing to survive in coalition with the Democratic Social Center and the Democratic Renovator Party, and after the approval of a no confidence resolution from the left-wing parties, with the aid of the Democratic Renovator Party, the government fell and Mário Soares, the President at the time, called for a new election.

The election was one by the Social Democratic Party, that with a growing popularity, won with a large majority, the biggest ever in the Portuguese parliamentary history. The left-wing Unitarian Democratic 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 Social Center lost almost a half of the voting, due to the useful voting effect on the also right-wing, Social Democratic Party.

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

• Unitarian Democratic Coalition (CDU), Álvaro Cunhal
• Portuguese Socialist Party (PS), Vítor Constâncio
• Democratic Renovator Party (PRD), Ramalho Eanes
• Social Democratic Party (PSD), Cavaco Silva
• Democratic Social Center (CDS), Lucas Pires

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

[edit] National summary of votes and seats

The first and the second most voted parties in each district (Azores and Madeira are not shown)

Portuguese legislative election, 1987 (July 19)
Logo	Party	Votes	%	Change	Seats
	PSD	2,850,784	50.2%	-	148
	PS	1,262,506	22.2%	-	60
	CDU	689,137	12.1%	-	31
	PRD	278,561	04.9%	-	7
	CDS	251,987	04.4%	-	4
	UDP	50,717	00.9%	-	0
	PSR	32,977	00.6%	-	0
	MDP/CDE	32,607	00.6%	-	0
	PDC	31,667	00.6%	-	0
	PPM	23,218	00.4%	-	0
	PCTP/MRPP	20,800	00.4%	-	0
	PC(R)	18,544	00.3%	-	0
	POUS	9,185	00.2%	-	0
	Blank Ballots	50,135	00.9%	-	-
	Invalid Ballots	73,533	01.3%	-	-
		5,676,358	-	-	250

• Registered Voters: 7,930,668
• Turnout: 71.57%

Notes:

• CDU is composed by the PCP (Communist) (27 MPs), the PEV (Green) (2 MPs) and the ID (2 MPs)
• The MPs of the ID ceased to form a group in July of 1988
• The MPs of the PRD ceased to form a group in December of 1990

(source: Portuguese Electoral Commission)

[edit] References

• CNE Resultados. Comissão Nacional de Eleições. Retrieved on 2005-05-17.
• Centro de Estudos do Pensamento Político. Retrieved on 2005-05-17.

[edit] See also

• Politics of Portugal
• List of political parties in Portugal
• Elections in Portugal