Portuguese Constituent Assembly election, 1975

Portuguese Constituent Assembly election, 1975

25 April 1975
250 seats to the Portuguese Constituent Assembly 125 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party   Leader Mário Soares Francisco Sá Carneiro Party PS PSD Leader since 19 April 1973 6 May 1974 Leader's seat Lisbon Porto Seats won 116 81 Popular vote 2,162,972 1,507,282 Percentage 37.9% 26.4%

Portugal

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

The Portuguese Constituent Assembly election, 1975 was carried out in Portugal on 25 April 1975, exactly one year after the Carnation Revolution and was the first free election in fifty years, the first in the new democratic regime created after the revolution which made the turnout the highest ever.

The main aim of the election was the election of a Constituent Assembly, in order to write a new Constitution to replace the Estado Novo regime's authoritarian Constitution of 1933 and so this freely-elected parliament had a single-year mandate and no government was based on parliamentary support; the country continued to be governed by a military-civilian provisional administration during the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly.

The election was, perhaps surprisingly, won by the Socialist Party. The Social Democratic Party was the second-most voted party, defending a project that it would soon abandon, social democratic centrism, the Portuguese "Social-Democracy" becoming the major right-wing party in the country a few years after. The parliament had a large majority of parties defending socialist or "democratic socialist" ideas and the Constitution, approved one year after, reflected such influence. The Portuguese Communist Party achieved a surprisingly low voting, considering the overwhelming support in the south of the country and the radical turn to the left of the revolutionary process after the failed fascist coup, one month before.

Parties

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

• Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), Álvaro Cunhal
• Portuguese Democratic Movement (MDP), José Manuel Tengarrinha
• Socialist Party (PS), Mário Soares
• Social Democratic Party (PSD), Francisco Sá Carneiro
• Democratic and Social Center (CDS), Freitas do Amaral

Opinion Polling

Date Released	Polling Firm	PS	PSD	PCP	CDS	MDP	Others	Lead
Mar 1975	IPOPE	47.0	21.0	17.0	2.0	4.0	9.0	26.0

National summary of votes and seats

 Summary of the 25 April 1975 Constituent Assembly elections results

Parties		Votes	%	MPs		MPs %/ votes %
				1975	%
	Socialist	2,162,972	37.87	116	46.40	1.23
	Social Democratic	1,507,282	26.39	81	32.40	1.23
	Portuguese Communist Party	711,935	12.46	30	12.00	0.96
	Democratic and Social Centre	434,879	7.61	16	6.40	0.84
	Portuguese Democratic Movement	236,318	4.14	5	2.00	0.48
	People's Socialist Front	66,307	1.16	0	0.00	0.0
	Movement of Socialist Left	58,248	1.02	0	0.00	0.0
	People's Democratic Union	44,877	0.79	1	0.40	0.51
	Communist Electoral Front (Marxist–Leninist)	33,185	0.58	0	0.00	0.0
	People's Monarchist Party	32,526	0.57	0	0.00	0.0
	Popular Unity Party	13,138	0.23	0	0.00	0.0
	Internationalist Communist League	10,835	0.19	0	0.00	0.0
	Independent Democratic Association of Macau	1,622	0.03	1	0.40	13.33
	Democratic Centre of Macau	1,030	0.02	0	0.00	0.0
Total valid		5,315,064	93.05	250	100.00	—
Invalid ballots		396,675	6.95
Total (turnout 91.66%)		5,711,829	100.00
A Independent Democratic Association of Macau and Democratic Centre of Macau electoral list only in Macau.
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share
PS			37.87%
PSD			26.39%
PCP			12.46%
CDS			7.61%
MDP/CDE			4.14%
FSP			1.16%
MES			1.02%
UDP			0.79%
Others/Invalides			8.56%

External links

• Comissão Nacional de Eleições
• Centro de Estudos do Pensamento Político

See also

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