230 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 116 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Registered
8,944,508 0.5%
Turnout
5,747,834 (64.3%) 2.8 pp
First party
Second party
Third party
Leader
José Sócrates
Pedro Santana Lopes
Jerónimo de Sousa
Party
PS
PSD
PCP
Alliance
CDU
Leader since
26 September 2004
1 July 2004
27 November 2004
Leader's seat
Castelo Branco[1]
Lisbon[2]
Lisbon[3]
Last election
96 seats, 37.8%
105 seats, 40.2%
12 seats, 6.9%
Seats won
121
75
14
Seat change
25
30
2
Popular vote
2,588,312
1,653,425
433,369
Percentage
45.0%
28.8%
7.5%
Swing
7.2 pp
11.4 pp
0.6 pp
Fourth party
Fifth party
Leader
Paulo Portas
Francisco Louçã
Party
CDS–PP
BE
Leader since
22 March 1998
24 March 1999
Leader's seat
Aveiro[4]
Lisbon[5]
Last election
14 seats, 8.7%
3 seats, 2.7%
Seats won
12
8
Seat change
2
5
Popular vote
416,415
364,971
Percentage
7.2%
6.4%
Swing
1.5 pp
3.6 pp
Vote winner strength by district
Results by constituency
Prime Minister before election
Pedro Santana Lopes
PSD
Prime Minister after election
José Sócrates
PS
The 2005 Portuguese legislative election took place on 20 February. The election renewed all 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic.
These elections were called after the decision of President Jorge Sampaio on 30 November 2004 to dissolve the Parliament as an answer to the political instability caused by the government led by Pedro Santana Lopes (PSD) in coalition with the PP. Santana Lopes had become Prime Minister in July 2004, after José Manuel Durão Barroso left the country in order to become President of the European Commission in a decision that divided the country, because many Portuguese were expecting that the Socialist President Jorge Sampaio would dissolve the Parliament and call a legislative election. However, after five unstable months, President Sampaio decided to dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections. The Prime Minister nevertheless announced the resignation of the government on 11 December, in an action with no practical effects whatsoever.
The campaign started officially on 6 February and the major topics were the problematic state of the country's finances, unemployment, abortion and even José Sócrates's alleged homosexuality.[6][7]
Headed by Sócrates, the centre-left Socialist Party (PS) won the election with a landslide victory, winning in 19 of the 22 electoral constituencies, including in districts such as Viseu and Bragança that historically voted for the right. The Socialist Party conquered its first absolute majority, receiving 45% of the electorate vote and 52% of the seats in the Parliament, making this the Socialists' largest ever victory in terms of vote percentage and seat count as of 2022. The centre-right parties, mainly the Social Democrats, were punished for their performance in government, and lost more than 11% of votes they had garnered in the previous election. On the left, the Left Bloc achieved its best result ever and made the biggest climb, gaining 5 MPs, while the CDU (Communists and the Greens) gained 2 MPs and reversed their downward trend of the last elections.
Voter turnout was the highest since 1995, as 64.3% of the electorate cast a ballot.
^Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
^Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
^Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
^Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
^Assembleia da República - Deputados e Grupos Parlamentares
^Santos Costa, Filipe (2 February 2005). "Santana nega ter feito insinuações" [Santana denies having made insinuations]. Diário de Notícias (in Portuguese). Retrieved 8 June 2016.
^Paixão, Paulo (23 September 2009). "Temas que marcaram a campanha das legislativas de 2005" [Themes that marked the 2005 election campaign]. Expresso (in Portuguese). Retrieved 8 June 2016.
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