Portuguese legislative election, 1995

The Portuguese legislative election of 1995 took place on October 1. The Socialist Party defeated the Social Democratic Party under the lead of António Guterres

António Guterres

António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, GCC is a Portuguese politician, a former prime minister and President of the Socialist International. Currently he is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.-Early life:...

, elected some months 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

Aníbal Cavaco Silva

Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, GCC , is the President of Portugal. He won the Portuguese presidential election on 22 January 2006 and was re-elected on 23 January 2011, for a second five-year term. Cavaco Silva was sworn in on 9 March 2006....

. The two minor parties, the Popular Party and the Communist Party achieved only 15 MPs each, a thing that marked the growing bi-polarization of the Portuguese political map.

The major parties involved were listed with their leaders:

Unitarian Democratic Coalition
Unitarian Democratic Coalition
The Democratic Unity Coalition is an electoral and political coalition between the Portuguese Communist Party and the Ecologist Party "The Greens"...

(CDU), Carlos Carvalhas
Carlos Carvalhas
Carlos Alberto do Vale Gomes Carvalhas, GCC is a Portuguese politician and former Secretary-General of the Portuguese Communist Party , succeeding the historical leader Álvaro Cunhal....
Portuguese Socialist Party
Socialist Party (Portugal)
The Socialist Party , abbreviated to PS, is a social-democratic political party in Portugal. It was founded on 19 April 1973 in the German city of Bad Münstereifel, by militants from Portuguese Socialist Action ....

(PS), António Guterres
António Guterres
António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, GCC is a Portuguese politician, a former prime minister and President of the Socialist International. Currently he is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.-Early life:...
Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (Portugal)
The Social Democratic Party , is a centre-right liberal conservative political party in Portugal. It is commonly known by its initials, PSD; on ballot papers, its initials appear as PPD/PSD, with the first three letters coming from the party's original name, Democratic People's Party...

(PSD), Fernando Nogueira
Fernando Nogueira
Joaquim Fernando Nogueira is a Portuguese politician.-Career:He was during Aníbal Cavaco Silva governments, Minister of the Parliamentary Affairs , Justice , National Defense , and Presidency . He was usually seen as the number 2 of the Social-Democratic Party...
Popular Party (CDS/PP), Manuel Monteiro
Manuel Monteiro
Manuel Fernando da Silva Monteiro is a Portuguese lawyer and politician.After winning the leadership of the conservative Democratic and Social Center in March 1992, he moved the party somewhat further to the right and changed its name to the People's Party in 1995...

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

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 1991 and 1995 for reference.

Date Released	Institute	Social Democratic Social Democratic Party (Portugal) The Social Democratic Party , is a centre-right liberal conservative political party in Portugal. It is commonly known by its initials, PSD; on ballot papers, its initials appear as PPD/PSD, with the first three letters coming from the party's original name, Democratic People's Party...	Socialist Socialist Party (Portugal) The Socialist Party , abbreviated to PS, is a social-democratic political party in Portugal. It was founded on 19 April 1973 in the German city of Bad Münstereifel, by militants from Portuguese Socialist Action ....	Green-Communist	People's Party	Lead
October 1, 1995	Election Results	34.1% 88 seats	43.8% 112 seats	8.6% 15 seats	9.1% 15 seats	9.7%
September 23, 1995	Metris	32.0%	42.0%	10.0%	8.0%	10.0%
September 23, 1995	Euroteste	35.0%	39.0%	9.0%	10.0%	4.0%
September 23, 1995	Euroexpansão	32.7%	44.5%	11.5%	6.9%	11.8%
September 23, 1995	Universidade Católica	35.0%	40.0%	9.0%	10.0%	5.0%
September 22, 1995	IPSOS	35.0%	41.0%	9.0%	9.0%	6.0%
September 21, 1995	Marktest	33.0%	42.0%	10.0%	9.0%	9.0%
September 16, 1995	Compta	39.0%	40.0%	12.0%	8.0%	1.0%
October 6, 1991	1991 election Portuguese legislative election, 1991 The Portuguese legislative election of 1991 took place on October 6. The Social Democratic Party, under the lead of Cavaco Silva, won a historic third term and won with an absolute majority for the second consecutive turn, achieving a higher share than in the previous election, losing, however, 13...	50.6% 135 seats	29.1% 72 seats	8.8% 17 seats	4.4% 5 seats	21.5%

National summary of votes and seats

|-
! rowspan="2" colspan=2 style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Parties
! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes
! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%
! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±
! colspan="5" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|MPs

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

! rowspan="2" colspan=5 style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|MPs %/
votes %
|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
! align="center"|1991

Portuguese legislative election, 1991

The Portuguese legislative election of 1991 took place on October 6. The Social Democratic Party, under the lead of Cavaco Silva, won a historic third term and won with an absolute majority for the second consecutive turn, achieving a higher share than in the previous election, losing, however, 13...

! align="center"|1995

Portuguese legislative election, 1995

The Portuguese legislative election of 1995 took place on October 1. The Socialist Party defeated the Social Democratic Party under the lead of António Guterres, elected some months before, but missed the absolute majority by 4 MPs. The Social Democratic party under the lead of Fernando Nogueira...

! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±
|-

|2,583,755||43.76||14.7||72||112||40||48.70||17.4||1.11
|-

|2,014,589||34.12||16.5||135||88||47||38.26||20.4||1.12
|-

|534,470||9.05||4.7||5||15||10||6.52||4.3||0.72
|-

|506,157||8.57||0.2||17||15||2||6.52||0.9||0.76
|-

|41,137||0.70||0.2||0||0||0||0.00||0.0||0.0
|-

|37,638||0.64||0.5||0||0||0||0.00||0.0||0.0
|-

|33,876||0.57||0.5||0||0||0||0.00||0.0||0.0
|-

|12,613||0.21||1.5||1||0||1||0.00||0.4||0.0
|-

|8,279||0.14||—||—||0||—||0.00||—||0.0
|-

|8,235||0.14||—||—||0||—||0.00||—||0.0
|-

|5,932||0.10||—||—||0||—||0.00||—||0.0
|-

|2,544||0.04||—||—||0||—||0.00||—||0.0
|-

|2,536||0.04||0.2||0||0||0||0.00||0.0||0.0
|-
|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid
|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,791,761
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|98.08
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.0
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|230
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|230
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.0
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|—
|-
|colspan=2|Blank ballots
|45,793||0.78||0.0||colspan=6 rowspan=3|
|-
|colspan=2|Invalid ballots
|67,300||1.14||0.0
|-
|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total (turnout 66.30%)
|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,904,854
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|1.5
|-
| colspan=11 align=left|In 1993, the name "People´s Party" was added to the party's name.
|-
| colspan=11 align=left | Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
|}

Opinion Polling

National summary of votes and seats

External links

See also