1985 Portuguese legislative election

The 1985 Portuguese legislative election took place on 6 October. The election renewed all 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

In June of the same year, the then incumbent Prime Minister, Mário Soares, resigned from the job due to the lack of parliamentary support, as the government was composed by a coalition of the two major parties, the center-right Social Democratic and the center-left Socialist, called the Central Bloc. However this was an unstable balance of forces and several members of each party opposed such coalition.

The new leader of the Social Democratic Party, Cavaco Silva, elected in May, was among those that never supported such coalition, and shortly after being elected leader of the party, in mid June, he forced the end of the coalition. Mário Soares didn't run again for Prime Minister, as he decided to run for the 1986 Presidential elections. The Socialist Party nominated Almeida Santos, Minister of State in Soares government, as the party's candidate for Prime Minister.

A new election was called by the President and the Social Democrats won with nearly 30% of the votes and Cavaco became Prime Minister, while the Socialists achieved its worst result ever, less than 21% of the votes and 57 seats. The election was the first of three consecutive election victories for the Social Democratic Party. The Communists also lost votes and MPs, and the left would only return to the government ten years later, in 1995. CDS as well had a drop in support, following their rejection of a PSD/CDS joint list for the election. which surprisingly gained 45 MPs and more than one million votes in the election, becoming the parliamentary support of the Cavaco's government until 1987, when it removed its support, making Cavaco fall.

Background

Government fall

The unpopularity of the Central Bloc government was creating deep rifts between PS and PSD, but also within both parties, as growing poverty, budget cuts and unemployment, due to the International Monetary Fund bailout policies, were leading to massive protests. In February 1985, Carlos Mota Pinto resigned from the PSD leadership and planned to run in the next party congress. However, he died just before the congress and Cavaco Silva was elected as leader. Shortly after his election, Cavaco Silva withdraw his party from the government and Soares Central Bloc government fell.

Leadership changes and challenges

By 1985, deep divisions were consuming the PSD regarding their role in the Central Bloc government with the PS. Then deputy Prime Minister and PSD leader Carlos Mota Pinto, resigned from both the government and the party's leadership and a snap party congress was called. But, Mota Pinto, who was expected to run for the leadership in the snap congress, died suddenly just 10 days before the start of the congress in Figueira da Foz. João Salgueiro, the candidate from "Mota Pinto's wing" was expected to win easily, but former finance minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva surprised the party by announcing a late candidacy, in what is now known as the "Running-in of Cavaco's new Citroën". Cavaco Silva had the support of the wings against the Central Bloc, and against all odds he defeated Salgueiro by just 57 votes. The results were the following:

|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"

! align="center" colspan=2 style="width: 60px"|Candidate

! align="center" style="width: 50px"|Votes

! align="center" style="width: 50px"|%

|bgcolor=|

| align=left | Aníbal Cavaco Silva

| align=right | 422

| align=right | 53.6

|bgcolor=|

| align=left | João Salgueiro

| align=right | 365

| align=right | 46.4

|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"

| colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Turnout

| align=right | 787

| align=center |

| colspan="4" align=left|Source: Results

Socialist Party

After the fall of the Central Bloc government, Mário Soares was acclaimed as the PS candidate for the 1986 Presidential election, and shortly thereafter, António Almeida Santos was selected as the party's candidate for Prime Minister in the 1985 legislative election, defeating a last minute candidacy from Jaime Gama.

|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"

! align="center" colspan=2 style="width: 60px"|Candidate

! align="center" style="width: 50px"|Votes

! align="center" style="width: 50px"|%

|bgcolor=|

| align=left | António Almeida Santos

| align=right | 30

| align=right | 61.2

|bgcolor=|

| align=left | Jaime Gama

| align=right | 14

| align=right | 28.6

| colspan="2" align=left | Abstention

| align=right | 5

| align=right | 10.2

|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"

| colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Turnout

| align=right | 49

| align=right | 100.0

| colspan="4" align=left|Source:

The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude. The use of the d'Hondt method makes for a higher effective threshold than certain other allocation methods such as the Hare quota or Sainte-Laguë method, which are more generous to small parties.

For these elections, and compared with the 1983 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:

{| class="wikitable"

! District !! Number of MPs !! Map

| Lisbon || style="text-align:center;"|56

| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="14"|

| Porto || style="text-align:center;"| 39

| Setúbal ||style="text-align:center;"| 17

| Braga ||style="text-align:center;"| 16

| Aveiro ||style="text-align:center;"| 15

| Santarém ||style="text-align:center;"| 12

| Leiria and Coimbra ||style="text-align:center;"| 11

| Viseu ||style="text-align:center;"| 10

| Faro ||style="text-align:center;"| 9

| Castelo Branco, Viana do Castelo and Vila Real ||style="text-align:center;"| 6

| Azores, Beja, Évora, Guarda and Madeira ||style="text-align:center;"| 5

| Bragança ||style="text-align:center;"| 4

| Portalegre ||style="text-align:center;"| 3

| Europe and Outside Europe ||style="text-align:center;"| 2

Parties

Before the election, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Democratic and Social Centre (CDS) considered running in a joint coalition for the elections, with the PSD "offering" the CDS 25 safe seats in the lists, but this proposal was rejected by the CDS and the two parties decided to contest the election separately. The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 3rd legislature (1983–1985) and that also partook in the election:

{| class="wikitable"

! rowspan="2" colspan="3"| Name

! rowspan="2"| Ideology

! rowspan="2"| Political position

! rowspan="2"| Leader

! colspan="2"| 1983 result

! %

! Seats

| style="color:inherit;background:;"|

| style="text-align:center;"| PS

| Socialist Party

| Social democracy

| Centre-left

| Almeida Santos

| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 36.1%

| style="background:Red;"|

| style="text-align:center;"| UEDS

| Left-wing Union for the Socialist Democracy

| Democratic Socialism Workers' self-management

| Left-wing

| António Lopes Cardoso

| style="background:#2E3191;"|

| style="text-align:center;"| ASDI

| Independent Social-Democratic Action

| Democratic Socialism Social democracy

| Centre-left

| António de Sousa Franco

| style="color:inherit;background:;"|

| style="text-align:center;"| PPD/PSD

| Social Democratic Party

| Centre-right

| Aníbal Cavaco Silva

| style="text-align:center;"| 27.2%

| style="background:#f00;"|

| style="text-align:center;"| PCP

| Portuguese Communist Party

| Communism Marxism–Leninism

| Far-left

| Álvaro Cunhal

| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"| 18.1%

| style="color:inherit;background:;"|

| style="text-align:center;"| MDP/CDE

| Portuguese Democratic Movement

| Left-wing nationalism Democratic socialism

| Left-wing

| José Manuel Tengarrinha

| style="color:inherit;background:;"|

| style="text-align:center;"| CDS

| Democratic and Social Centre

| Christian democracy

| Francisco Lucas Pires

| style="text-align:center;"| 12.6%

Campaign period

Party slogans

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:97%; text-align:left;"

! style="text-align:left;" colspan="2"| Party or alliance

! Original slogan

! English translation

! Refs

| width="1" style="color:inherit;background:"|

| PS

| « O que prometo, faço. Vamos a isto. »

| "What I promise, I do. Let's do this."

| style="color:inherit;background:"|

| PSD

| « Retomar a esperança »

| "Resuming hope"

| style="color:inherit;background:"|

| APU

| « Vitória da APU para salvar o país »

| "Victory for APU to save the country"

| style="color:inherit;background:"|

| CDS

| « Confiança, razão, força para Portugal »

| "Trust, reason, strength for Portugal"

| style="color:inherit;background:"|

| PRD

| « Mais Portugal »

| "More Portugal"

Candidates' debates

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:98%; text-align:center;"

! colspan="20"| 1985 Portuguese legislative election debates

! rowspan="3"| Date

! rowspan="3"| Organisers

! rowspan="3"| Moderator(s)

! colspan="18"|

! scope="col" style="width:5em;"| PS

! scope="col" style="width:5em;"| PSD

! scope="col" style="width:5em;"| APU

! scope="col" style="width:5em;"| CDS

! rowspan="2"| Refs

! style="color:inherit;background:;"|

| style="white-space:nowrap; text-align:left;"| 3 Sep

| style="white-space:nowrap; text-align:left;"| RTP1

| style="white-space:nowrap; text-align:left;"| Mário Crespo