Portuguese legislative election, 1976

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Portugal

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

The Portuguese legislative election of 1976 took place on April 25, exactly one year after the previous election, and two years after the Carnation Revolution. With a new Constitution approved, the country's main aim was the economical recovery and the strengthen of the democratic conquests.

The election was won again by the Socialist Party and Mário Soares, its leader, became the Prime-Minister of the 1st Constitutional government in July 23. The lack of a socialist majority forced this party to form an unexpected coalition with the Democratic Social Center, the party on the right end of the political spectrum at the time. The nature of such coalition, between a party that defended the socialist way to the country and another that voted against the constitution because of its socialist influences surprised most of the Portuguese voters and marked the start of the righ-wing turn of the Socialist Party that would soon be attacked by all the left due to the new government measures against the left-wing conquests of the revolution, mainly the agrarian reform.

The Social Democratic Party was the second most voted party and the Portuguese Communist Party achieved a relevant increase in the voting, showing its growing influence, mainly in the south of the country.

The major parties involved and the respective leaders:

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

National summary of votes and seats

The first and the second most voted parties in each district (Azores and Madeira are not shown)

Portuguese legislative election, 1976 (April 25)
Logo	Party	Votes	%	Change	Seats
	PS	1,912,921	34.9%	-	107
	PSD	1,335,381	24.4%	-	73
	CDS	876,007	16.0%	-	42
	PCP	788,830	14.4%	-	40
	UDP	91,690	01.7%	-	1
	FSP	42,162	00.8%	-	0
	MRPP	36,200	00.7%	-	0
	MES	31,332	00.6%	-	0
	PDC	29,874	00.5%	-	0
	PPM	28,320	00.5%	-	0
	LCI	16,269	00.3%	-	0
	PCP(M-L)	15,830	00.3%	-	0
	AOC	15,778	00.3%	-	0
	PRT	5,171	00.1%	-	0
	Blank Ballots	0	00.0%	-	-
	Invalid Ballots	257,696	04.7%	-	-
		5,483,461	-	-	263

• Registered Voters: 6,564,667
• Turnout: 83.53%

References

See also

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

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