Portuguese Elections
AS OF 2026-08-30 · 61 CONTESTS · legislative, 18 May 2025 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
Next election · legislative, expected 2029 · Capital · Lisbon in the metro rankings →
Every Portuguese legislative election from 1918 to 2025 and every presidential contest since 1911: the chaos of the First Republic, forty years of elections Salazar could not lose, the Carnation Revolution and the highest turnout in Portuguese history, the geringonça, and the fastest party-system collapse in western Europe.
Assembly seats
230
116 for a majority
Elections since 1918
61
legislative and presidential
Revolution turnout
91.7%
the 1975 Constituent Assembly, still the record
Parliamentary elections
Every legislative election from 1918, newest first. Forty years of them, from 1934 to 1973, were won by the same list with every seat, and are labelled accordingly.
Three elections in three years · 2022–
An absolute majority in 2022 that collapsed within two years, then elections in 2024 and 2025 with Chega rising at each one until it finished second. The Portuguese party system, stable for thirty years, has fragmented faster than any other in western Europe.
Troika and geringonça · 2011–2019
The bailout of 2011 brought a right-wing majority and four years of austerity. In 2015 the right won the most votes and lost power anyway: the Socialists governed with the Communists and the Left Bloc supporting from outside, an arrangement the opposition named the geringonça, the contraption, and which lasted four years.
Cavaco and the two-party years · 1987–2009
Cavaco Silva's absolute majorities in 1987 and 1991 ended the instability and set the pattern: the PSD and the PS alternating, each occasionally strong enough to govern alone, the Communists and the CDS reduced to flanks.
The Carnation Revolution · 1975–1985
The captains' coup of April 1974 ended the dictatorship and the colonial wars together. The Constituent Assembly election of 1975, held on the revolution's first anniversary with a turnout of 91.7%, remains the highest participation in Portuguese history. What followed was a decade of minority governments, a hot summer of near civil war, and an IMF programme.
The Estado Novo · 1934–1973
Salazar's New State held elections every four years for forty years and lost none of them. Opposition candidates were permitted to register and then denied the electoral rolls, access to the press and any prospect of an honest count; most withdrew before polling day. The National Union won every seat in every election listed here.
The First Republic · 1918–1926
Sixteen years, forty-five governments and eight presidents, one of them assassinated. The republic that replaced the monarchy in 1910 never found a majority it could hold, and the elections of the period were run by whichever party controlled the ministry of the interior.
Presidential elections
Every presidential contest from 1911, newest first. The Estado Novo years are marked unfree: parliament chose the president after 1959, and the one time the public was allowed a real choice, in 1958, the losing general was later murdered.
The presidency since the revolution · 1976–
Directly elected again since 1976, on two rounds, with real powers of dissolution and veto that Portuguese presidents have used. Soares, Sampaio, Cavaco Silva and Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa each served the full two terms the constitution allows.
The First Republic and the Estado Novo · 1911–1958
Elected by parliament until 1918 and again after 1926, the presidency under Salazar was a formality with one exception: in 1958 General Delgado ran openly against the regime, was credited with 23% in a count nobody trusts, and was murdered by the secret police seven years later. Direct election was abolished immediately afterwards.
The long arc in charts
Hover any point for the exact figure.
Turnout since 1975
From 91.7% at the revolution to under 60% in the 2010s, one of the steepest declines in Europe, arrested only by the drama of the last three elections.
The two-party share
PS plus PSD, from over 80% in the Cavaco years to barely half today. Chega took most of the difference.
Records & superlatives
How Portugalian elections work
Closed-list PR in 22 districts
D'Hondt in districts ranging from two seats to forty-eight, with no national threshold. The small interior districts are effectively two-party, which is why Portugal's index of disproportionality is higher than the label suggests.
A president who can dissolve
Directly elected on two rounds, with the power to dissolve the Assembly and to veto legislation. Portuguese presidents have used both, and the 2024 and 2025 elections were both called by one.
Forty years of elections that decided nothing
The Estado Novo held a vote every four years and the National Union won every seat every time. Opposition lists were allowed to register and then denied the rolls and the press; most withdrew before polling day. Those rows are marked as unfree.
The contraption
In 2015 the right won the election and lost power: the Socialists governed for four years with Communist and Left Bloc support from outside the cabinet, an arrangement that had never been tried and has not been repeated.