1975 Portuguese Constituent Assembly election

The Portuguese Constituent Assembly election, 1975 was carried out in Portugal on 25 April 1975, exactly one year after the Carnation Revolution. It was the first free election held in Portugal since 1925, and only the seventh free election in all of Portuguese history. Turnout was 91.66 percent—at the time, 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 total, 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.

With the PSD's shift away from the left and towards the right coming after this election, the only right-of-centre party elected was the CDS, which received 7.6 percent of the vote and 16 seats.

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
Date Released	Polling Firm						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

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FF66FF;" data-sort-value="Socialist Party (Portugal)" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FF9900;" data-sort-value="Social Democratic Party (Portugal)" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FF0000;" data-sort-value="Portuguese Communist Party" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0093DD;" data-sort-value="Democratic and Social Centre – People's Party" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: darkred;" data-sort-value="Portuguese Democratic Movement" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: red;" data-sort-value="People's Socialist Front" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: red;" data-sort-value="Movement of Socialist Left" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: red;" data-sort-value="Communist Electoral Front (Marxist–Leninist)" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #2A5392;" data-sort-value="People's Monarchist Party (Portugal)" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: red;" data-sort-value="Popular Unity Party (Portugal)" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: red;" data-sort-value="Internationalist Communist League (Portugal)" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: green;" data-sort-value="Independent Democratic Association of Macau" | style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: lightblue;" data-sort-value="Democratic Centre of Macau" |

e • d Summary of the 25 April 1975 Constituent Assembly elections results
Parties		Votes	%	MPs		MPs %/ votes %
Parties		Votes	%	1975	%	MPs %/ votes %
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
PPM	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^[A]	1,622	0.03	1	0.40	13.33
Democratic Centre of Macau^[A]	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%

Parliamentary seats

PS			46.40%
PSD			32.40%
PCP			12.00%
CDS			6.40%
MDP/CDE			2.00%
UDP			0.40%
ADIM			0.40%

Distribution by constituency

e • d Results of the 1975 election of the Portuguese Constituent Assembly by constituency
Constituency	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	%	S	Total S
Constituency	PS		PSD		PCP		CDS		MDP/CDE		UDP		ADIM		Total S
Angra (Azores Central Group)	23.0	-	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|62.8	2	2.4	-	6.1	-	1.1	-					2
Aveiro	31.8	5	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|42.9	7	3.2	-	11.1	2	3.9	-					14
Beja	35.6	3	5.3	-	39.0	3	2.2	-	5.5	-	1.4	-			6
Braga	27.4	5	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|37.7	7	3.7	-	18.0	3	2.9	-					15
Bragança	24.7	1	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|43.0	3	2.7	-	13.5	-	3.7	-					4
Castelo Branco	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|41.5	5	24.3	2	5.6	-	6.4	-	3.9	-	0.8	-	7
Coimbra	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|43.2	7	27.2	4	5.7	1	4.6	-	4.4	-			12
EvoraÉvora	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|37.9	3	6.9	-	37.1	2	2.8	-	7.8	-	0.9	-	5
Faro	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|45.4	6	13.9	1	12.3	1	3.4	-	9.5	1	1.1	-	9
Funchal (Madeira)	19.6	1	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|61.9	5	1.7	-	10.0	-	1.3	-			6
Guarda	28.2	2	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|33.3	3	2.9	-	19.5	1	3.6	-			6
Horta (Azores Western Group)	23.0	-	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|67.6	1	2.4	-			3.1	-			1
Leiria	33.2	5	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|35.6	5	6.4	-	6.8	1	3.4	-	1.1	-	11
Lisbon	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|46.0	29	15.0	9	18.9	11	4.8	3	4.1	2	1.7	1	55
Macau													56.4	1	1
Mozambique	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|41.1	1													1
Ponta Delgada (Azores Eastern Group)	30.4	1	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|54.8	2	1.5	-	3.1	-	2.7	-					3
Portalegre	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|52.4	3	9.9	-	17.5	1	4.0	-	4.5	-	1.2	-			4
Porto	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|42.6	18	29.4	12	6.7	2	8.9	3	2.6	1	0.6	-			36
Santarém	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|42.9	8	18.8	3	15.1	2	4.3	-	4.1	-	1.0	-			13
Setúbal	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|38.2	7	5.7	1	37.8	7	1.6	-	6.0	1	1.3	-			16
Viana do Castelo	24.5	2	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|36.0	3	3.8	-	14.5	1	7.1	-					6
Vila Real	27.1	2	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|45.8	4	2.9	-	7.2	-	2.3	-					6
Viseu	21.5	2	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|43.9	6	2.3	-	17.2	2	4.0	-					10
zEmigration	34.4	-	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|45.6	1			4.6	-	11.0	-					1
Total	style="background:Template:Socialist Party (Portugal)/meta/color; color:white;"\|37.9	116	26.4	81	12.5	30	7.6	16	4.1	5	0.8	1	0.0	1	250
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

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See also: Elections in the Azores Madeira Lisbon Porto Presidential elections

1975 Portuguese Constituent Assembly election

Parties

Opinion polling

National summary of votes and seats

Distribution by constituency

References

External links

See also

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

Portugal
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