Portuguese legislative election, 1995

1 October 1995

230 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 116 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party

Leader	António Guterres	Fernando Nogueira
Party	PS	PSD
Leader since	23 February 1992	19 February 1995
Leader's seat	Castelo Branco^[1]	Porto^[2]
Last election	72 seats, 29.1%	135 seats, 50.6%
Seats won	112	88
Seat change	40	47
Popular vote	2,583,755	2,014,589
Percentage	43.8%	34.1%
Swing	14.7%	16.5%

Prime Minister before election

Cavaco Silva
PSD

Prime Minister-elect

Guterres
PS

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

The Portuguese legislative election of 1995 took place on 1 October. The Socialist Party defeated the Social Democratic Party under the lead of António Guterres, elected three years before, but missed the absolute majority by 4 MPs. The Social Democratic party under the lead of Fernando Nogueira was weakened by the end of a ten years cycle of government of Cavaco Silva. The two minor parties, the People's Party and the Democratic Unity Coalition achieved only 15 MPs each, a thing that marked the growing bi-polarization of the Portuguese political map. Although turnout, in percentage point, was lower than the previous election in 1991, almost 6 million voters cast a ballot on election day, the highest figure since 1980.

Voter turnout stood at 66.3%, the lowest till then.

Parties

The major parties involved were listed with their leaders:

Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU), Carlos Carvalhas
Socialist Party (PS), António Guterres
Social Democratic Party (PSD), Fernando Nogueira
People's Party (CDS–PP), Manuel Monteiro

António Guterres, leader of the Socialist Party, was nominated Prime Minister for the first time, becoming the first socialist Prime-Minister in 10 years.

Opinion Polling

**116 seats needed for a majority**
Date Released	Institute	Social Democratic	Socialist	Green-Communist	People's Party	Lead
1 October 1995	Election Results	34.1% 88 seats	43.8% 112 seats	8.6% 15 seats	9.1% 15 seats	9.7%
23 September 1995	Metris	32.0%	42.0%	10.0%	8.0%	10.0%
23 September 1995	Euroteste	35.0%	39.0%	9.0%	10.0%	4.0%
23 September 1995	Euroexpansão	32.7%	44.5%	11.5%	6.9%	11.8%
23 September 1995	Universidade Católica	35.0%	40.0%	9.0%	10.0%	5.0%
22 September 1995	IPSOS	35.0%	41.0%	9.0%	9.0%	6.0%
21 September 1995	Marktest	33.0%	42.0%	10.0%	9.0%	9.0%
16 September 1995	Compta	39.0%	40.0%	12.0%	8.0%	1.0%
6 October 1991	1991 election	50.6% 135 seats	29.1% 72 seats	8.8% 17 seats	4.4% 5 seats	21.5%

National summary of votes and seats

**Summary of the 1 October 1995 Assembly of the Republic elections results**
Parties		Votes	%	±	MPs					MPs %/ votes %
Parties		Votes	%	±	1991	1995	±	%	±	MPs %/ votes %
	Socialist	2,583,755	43.76	14.7	72	112	40	48.70	17.4	1.11
	Social Democratic	2,014,589	34.12	16.5	135	88	47	38.26	20.4	1.12
	People's^[A]	534,470	9.05	4.7	5	15	10	6.52	4.3	0.72
	Democratic Unity Coalition^[B]	506,157	8.57	0.2	17	15	2	6.52	0.9	0.76
	Workers' Communist Party	41,137	0.70	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	Revolutionary Socialist Party	37,638	0.64	0.5	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	People's Democratic Union	33,876	0.57	0.5	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
	National Solidarity Party	12,613	0.21	1.5	1	0	1	0.00	0.4	0.0
	Party of the People	8,279	0.14	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Earth Party	8,235	0.14	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Earth Party / People's Monarchist Party	5,932	0.10	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Unity Movement for Workers	2,544	0.04	—	—	0	—	0.00	—	0.0
	Democratic Party of the Atlantic	2,536	0.04	0.2	0	0	0	0.00	0.0	0.0
Total valid		5,791,761	98.08	0.0	230	230	0	100.00	0.0	—
Blank ballots		45,793	0.78	0.0
Invalid ballots		67,300	1.14	0.0
Total (turnout 66.30%)		5,904,854	100.00	1.5
^A In 1993, the name "People´s Party" was added to the party's name. ^B Portuguese Communist Party (13 MPs) and "The Greens" (2 MPs) ran in coalition.^[3]
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share

PS			43.76%
PSD			34.12%
CDS-PP			9.05%
CDU			8.57%
Others/Invalides			4.50%

References

External links

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