2009 Portuguese legislative election

← 2005 27 September 2009 2011 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All 230 seats in theAssembly of the Republic 116 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Registered	9,519,921 6.4%
Turnout	5,681,258 (59.7%) 4.6pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader José Sócrates Manuela Ferreira Leite Paulo Portas Party PS PSD CDS–PP Leader since 26 September 2004 31 May 2008 21 April 2007 Leader's seat Castelo Branco Lisbon Aveiro Last election 121 seats, 45.0% 75 seats, 28.8% 12 seats, 7.2% Seats won 97 81 21 Seat change 24 6 9 Popular vote 2,077,238 1,653,665 592,778 Percentage 36.6% 29.1% 10.4% Swing 8.4pp 0.3pp 3.2pp   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Francisco Louçã Jerónimo de Sousa Party BE PCP Alliance CDU Leader since 24 March 1999 27 November 2004 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 8 seats, 6.4% 14 seats, 7.5% Seats won 16 15 Seat change 8 1 Popular vote 557,306 446,279 Percentage 9.8% 7.9% Swing 3.4pp 0.3pp
Vote winner strength by district Results by constituency
Prime Minister before election José Sócrates PS Prime Minister after election José Sócrates PS

The2009 Portuguese legislative election was held on 27 September, to renew all 230 members of theAssembly of the Republic.^[1] In these elections there were approximately 9.5 million Portuguese at home and abroad called to determine the 230 seats in the Assembleia da República and 18th constitutional government in Portugal after 1976.

The election took place during the regular end of the previous four-year legislative period. From 2005 to 2009, the Socialist Party (PS), led by José Sócrates, governed with an absolute majority. The opinion polls at the beginning of the official election campaign on 12 September 2009, showed a too close to call race between the Socialists and the conservative Social Democrats,^[2] but just days before the election the Socialists increased their lead over the Social Democrats.^[3] A total of 13 parties and two coalitions competed in this election. Focus of the campaign was the impact of the2008 financial crisis and the construction of new infrastructure projects, including the high-speed rail link Lisbon-Madrid and Lisbon-Porto-Vigo, and the new Lisbon airport.

TheSocialist Party, led by incumbent Prime MinisterJosé Sócrates, won the largest number of seats, but didn't repeat theoverall majority they gained in2005.^[4] The Socialists came in first, despite losing 9 percent of the vote and 24 seats, with a clear lead over the conservative Social Democrats, with big gains for thePeople's Party and for theLeft Bloc.

Neither of the two major parties won an absolute majority in the Assembly of the Republic, so, the future prime minister had to form a coalition, or at least rely on other parties to govern. In that case, José Sócrates was in a better position than Manuela Ferreira Leite, since the Portuguese left won by 54.23 percent of the vote and 128 seats, against 39.54 percent and 102 deputies to the right.

On 12 October, José Sócrates was invited byPresidentAníbal Cavaco Silva to form government. The new cabinet was announced on 22 October and sworn in on 26 October.Voter turnout was one of the lowest in Portuguese election history, as 59.7 percent of the electorate cast a ballot.

In theFebruary 2005 early elections, the Socialists, under the leadership of José Sócrates, won 45 percent of the votes and 121 MPs, the 1st time the Socialists won a majority and the 1st time a single party won a majority since Cavaco Silva's PSD victory in1991. The PSD suffered a heavy defeat, achieving their worst results since 1983, and faced with this failure, the then PSD leader and outgoing Prime Minister,Pedro Santana Lopes, resigned from the leadership and called an election for party chair.

During the first months in his government, Sócrates raised taxes to cut the deficit and initiated a policy of strict budgetary rigor. At the same time, he faced a very harsh summer with Wildfires across the country.^[5] That same October, the Socialists suffered a heavy defeat in the2005 local elections, winning just 108 cities, a drop of 4, against the PSD's 158 mayoral holds. The PS was also unable to retake control ofLisbon andPorto. In January 2006, a new president was elected.Aníbal Cavaco Silva, PM between 1985 and 1995, became the first center-right candidate to win apresidential election, although only just. The PS candidate, former PM and PresidentMário Soares polled a disappointing third place with just 14 v of the votes. In 2007, areferendum for the legalization of abortion was held. After the failure of the1998 referendum, the Yes side prevailed winning 59 percent of the votes against the No's 41 percent, making abortion legal in Portugal.^[6]

While the deficit reduction had been successful, and with the economy growing above 2 percent of GDP, the government faced heavy opposition for its policies, particularly from teachers unions. In March 2008, more than 100,000 teachers protested in Lisbon against Sócrates and his Education minister,Maria de Lurdes Rodrigues.^[7]

José Sócrates four-year term was also marred by a series of corruption and sleaze accusations towards the Prime Minister himself, with the two main cases being theIndependent affair and theFreeport affair. In the first, Sócrates was accused of obtaining his degree in engineering by irregular means from theIndependente University, and this case, plus further irregularities, led to the closure of the university.^[8][9] Several years later, thePublic Prosecution office ruled that Sócrates indeed obtained his degree illegally.^[10] In the second case, theFreeport affair, Sócrates was accused, as environment minister (1999–2002), of allegedly ignoring environmental restrictions, due to interventions from members of his own family, in order to allow the construction of a shopping mall inAlcochete by the British company Freeport.^[11] Regarding this case, the end of a primetime evening news show onTVI network, anchored byManuela Moura Guedes, also led to accusations of pressure from Sócrates and the PS to end the evening news show as it had several reports on the Freeport affair and an unfavourable coverage towards the Prime Minister.^[12] TheFreeport affair was ultimately closed due to lack of evidence.^[13]

Entering 2009, Portugal was strongly affected by the2008 financial crisis, and, was in arecession. As a result, the government adopted stimulus measures that worsened the public finances and increased the deficit and the debt. In theEuropean elections of June 7, 2009, the PSD stunned pundits by winning a European election for the first time since 1989, with 31.7 percent of the votes. The Socialists suffered a huge defeat, winning just 26 percent of the votes, a drop of 18 points.

In the party's congress in April 2005,Luís Marques Mendes became party leader winning 56 percent of the delegates, against the 44 percent of his rival,Luís Filipe Menezes.^[14] The results were the following:

CDS–PP leaderPaulo Portas, resigned from the leadership following the disappointing result of the party in the2005 elections saying that"in no civilized country in the world, the difference between Trotskyists and Christian Democrats is one percent", referring to the result of theBE.^[15] A snap leadership congress was called to elect a new leader. Two candidates were in the ballot:^[16]Telmo Correia, the preferred candidate of Paulo Portas, andJosé Ribeiro e Castro, more critical of Portas. Ribeiro e Castro was easily elected^[17] and the results were the following:

In April 2007, former CDS–PP leaderPaulo Portas challenged the then party leader,José Ribeiro e Castro, for the leadership and was elected for his former job by a landslide.^[19] The results were the following:

In the Social Democratic Party, incumbent leaderLuís Marques Mendes was being very criticized for his opposition strategy and was left weakened after the PSD disappointing result in the2007 Lisbon mayoral by-election, where the PSD polled 3rd with less than 16 percent of the votes.^[20] Marques Mendes called a snap leadership election and was challenged by his rival in the 2005 PSD congress,Luís Filipe Menezes.^[21] Menezes easily defeated Marques Mendes. The results were the following:

The then PSD leader,Luís Filipe Menezes, elected in September 2007, resigned after just 6 months in the job.^[23] In the following leadership elections, held in May 2008,Manuela Ferreira Leite became the first woman to lead a major party in Portugal, winning 38 percent of the votes, against the 31 percent ofPedro Passos Coelho and the 30 percent ofPedro Santana Lopes.^[24] The results were the following:

Official logo of the election.

Ballot for the district ofSetúbal.

TheAssembly of the Republic has 230 members elected to four-year terms. Governments do not require absolute majority support of the Assembly to hold office, as even if the number of opposers of government is larger than that of the supporters, the number of opposers still needs to be equal or greater than 116 (absolute majority) for both the Government's Programme to be rejected or for amotion of no confidence to be approved.^[25]

The number of seats assigned to each district depends on thedistrict magnitude.^[26] The use of thed'Hondt method makes for a higher effective threshold than certain other allocation methods such as theHare quota orSainte-Laguë method, which are more generous to small parties.^[27]

For these elections, and compared with the 2005 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:^[28]

District	Number of MPs	Map
Lisbon(–1)	47	19 6 39 5 3 16 9 4 10 4 10 10 47 2 3 17 3 8 6 5 2 2
Porto(+1)	39
Braga(+1)	19
Setúbal	17
Aveiro(+1)	16
Leiria,Santarém andCoimbra	10
Viseu	9
Faro	8
Madeira andViana do Castelo	6
Azores andVila Real	5
Castelo Branco(–1) andGuarda	4
Beja,Bragança(–1) andÉvora	3
Portalegre, Europe and Outside Europe	2

The table below lists the parties represented in theAssembly of the Republic during the 10th legislature (2005–2009) and that also partook in the election:

• On 24 October 2007, thePortuguese Communist Party removed their confidence in MPLuísa Mesquita, and one month later, she was expelled from the party. The party had asked her to leave her seat in 2006, something she refused, and a rift between her and the party's central committee was created. She decided to remain as anIndependent MP.^[30]

• On 17 December 2008,CDS – People's Party MPJosé Paulo Carvalho announced he was leaving the party, citing "lack of strategy" in the party and an "abdication of the party's fundamental ideas and values". He remained in Parliament as anIndependent MP.^[31]

The table below shows voter turnout throughout election day including voters from Overseas.

Turnout	Time
	12:00			16:00			19:00
	2005	2009	±	2005	2009	±	2005	2009	±
Total	21.93%	21.29%	0.64pp	50.94%	43.30%	7.64pp	64.26%	59.68%	4.58pp
Sources[38][39][40][41]

Party		Votes	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	Socialist Party	2,077,238	36.56	–8.47	97	–24
	Social Democratic Party	1,653,665	29.11	+0.34	81	+10
	CDS – People's Party	592,778	10.43	+3.19	21	+9
	Left Bloc	557,306	9.81	+3.46	16	+8
	Unitary Democratic Coalition[b]	446,279	7.86	+0.32	15	+1
	Portuguese Workers' Communist Party	52,761	0.93	+0.09	0	0
	Hope for Portugal Movement	25,949	0.46	New	0	New
	New Democracy Party	21,876	0.39	–0.31	0	0
	Merit and Society Movement	16,924	0.30	New	0	New
	People's Monarchist Party[c]	15,262	0.27	—	0	–2
	Ecology and Humanism Front (MPT–PH)[d]	12,405	0.22	–0.08	0	0
	National Renovator Party	11,503	0.20	+0.04	0	0
	Portugal Pro-Life Party	8,461	0.15	New	0	New
	Portuguese Labour Party	4,974	0.09	New	0	New
	Workers' Party of Socialist Unity	4,632	0.08	–0.02	0	0
	Earth Party[e]	3,265	0.06	—	0	–2
Total		5,505,278	100.00	–	230	0
Valid votes		5,505,278	96.90	–0.16
Invalid votes		76,894	1.35	+0.21
Blank votes		99,086	1.74	–0.06
Total votes		5,681,258	100.00	–
Registered voters/turnout		9,519,921	59.68	–4.58
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições[42]

• 
  Winner and seats by constituency.
• 
  Most voted political force bymunicipality.
• 
  First, second and third most voted political force bydistrict.
• 
  Most voted political force bydistrict orautonomous region.

By 2010, Portugal was facing a big economic crisis and the Government was forced to implement austerity measures.^[43] Plus, Sócrates himself was also involved in a new corruption investigation,Face Oculta,^[44] although no accusation was made.^[45] Despite the government's announcement of more fiscal restraint policies in order to control public spending, the economy entered in a recession and protests against the government policies began.^[46] On 12 March 2011, protests against the Government's austerity measures drew up to 280,000 people just in the streets ofLisbon andPorto alone.^[47] By March 2011, the PS Government had presented three Stability and Growth Programs (PECs) and all failed in controlling spending and convincing markets.^[48] A forth one, PEC IV, was put for a vote in Parliament on 23 March 2011 but it was rejected by all Opposition parties and only supported by theSocialists.

2011 PEC IV José Sócrates (PS)
Ballot →		23 March 2011
Required majority →		Simple
	Yes •PS (97)	97 / 230
	No •PSD (80) •CDS–PP (21) •BE (16) •PCP (13) •PEV (2)	132 / 230
	Abstentions	0 / 230
	Absentees •PSD (1)	1 / 230
Result →		RejectedN
Sources[49][50]

Before the vote, Prime MinisterJosé Sócrates threatened to resign if the PEC failed to pass. After the result of the vote was announced, Sócrates tendered his resignation to PresidentAníbal Cavaco Silva.^[51] A snap legislative election was then called for5 June 2011.^[52]

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

• Preliminary results of the 2009 election
• Portuguese Electoral Commission

• 2009 elections in Portugal
• Legislative elections in Portugal
• September 2009 in Portugal

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