Portuguese legislative election, 1985

6 October 1985

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

	First party	Second party

Leader	Aníbal Cavaco Silva	Almeida Santos
Party	PSD	PS
Leader since	2 June 1985	13 June 1985 (interim)
Leader's seat	Lisbon^[1]	Porto^[2]
Last election	75 seats, 27.2%	101 seats, 36.1%
Seats won	88	57
Seat change	13	44
Popular vote	1,732,288	1,204,321
Percentage	29.9%	20.8%
Swing	2.7%	15.3%

Prime Minister before election

Soares
PS

Prime Minister-elect

Cavaco Silva
PSD

Portugal
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.

Parties

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

United People Alliance (APU), Álvaro Cunhal
Socialist Party (PS), Almeida Santos
Democratic Renewal Party (PRD), Hermínio Martinho
Social Democratic Party (PSD), Cavaco Silva
Democratic and Social Center (CDS), Lucas Pires

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

Opinion Polling

See also: Exit poll and Opinion poll

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.

**125 seats needed for a majority**
Date Released	Institute	Socialist	Social Democratic	United People Alliance	Democratic and Social Centre	Democratic Renewal	Lead
6 October 1985	Election Results	20.8% 57 seats	29.9% 88 seats	15.5% 38 seats	10.0% 22 seats	17.9% 45 seats	9.1%
6 October 1985	Exit Poll - RTP1, 22:50h	22.0% – 26.9%	26.8% – 29.7%	15.0% – 18.1%	9.3% – 10.8%	14.5% – 16.5%	2.8% – 4.8%
6 October 1985	Exit Poll - RTP1, 21:10h	23.8% – 26.9%	28.0% – 29.8%	17.3% – 18.1%	9.8% – 10.7%	11.1% – 14.9%	2.9% – 6.0%
6 October 1985	Exit Poll - Rádio Comercial	19.0% – 22.0%	29.0% – 31.0%	14.0% – 16.0%	8.0% – 16.0%	18.0% – 22.0%	9.0% – 10.0%
4 October 1985	Expresso	28.0% – 32.0%	27.0% – 31.0%	15.0% – 17.0%	9.0% – 12.0%	8.0% – 11.0%	1.0%
25 April 1983	Election Results	36.1% 101 seats	27.2% 75 seats	18.1% 44 seats	12.6% 30 seats	—	8.9%

National summary of votes and seats

**Summary of the 6 October 1985 Assembly of the Republic elections results**
Parties		Votes	%	±	MPs					MPs %/ votes %
Parties		Votes	%	±	1983	1985	±	%	±	MPs %/ votes %
	Social Democratic	1,732,288	29.87	2.7	75	88	13	35.20	5.2	1.18
	Socialist	1,204,321	20.77	15.3	101	57	44	22.80	17.6	1.10
	Democratic Renewal	1,038,893	17.92	—	—	45	—	18.00	—	1.00
	United People Alliance^[A]	898,281	15.49	2.6	44	38	6	15.20	2.4	0.98
	Democratic and Social Centre	577,580	9.96	2.6	30	22	8	8.80	3.2	0.88
	People's Democratic Union	73,401	1.27	0.8	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Christian Democratic Party	41,831	0.72	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist Party	35,238	0.61	0.4	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Workers' Communist Party	19,943	0.34	0.1	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Workers Party of Socialist Unity	19,085	0.33	0.0	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Communist Party (Reconstructed)	12,749	0.22	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
Total valid		5,653,610	97.49	0.1	250	250	0	100.00	0.0	—
Blank ballots		48,709	0.84	0.1
Invalid ballots		96,610	1.67	0.1
Total (turnout 74.16%)		5,798,929	100.00	3.6
^A Portuguese Communist Party (35 MPs) and Portuguese Democratic Movement (3 MPs) ran in coalition.^[3]
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share

PSD			29.87%
PS			20.77%
PRD			17.92%
APU			15.49%
CDS			9.96%
UDP			1.27%
Others/Invalides			4.73%

Portuguese legislative election, 1985

Parties

Opinion Polling

National summary of votes and seats

References

External links

See also