Portuguese presidential election, 1996

The Portuguese presidential election of 1996 was held on January 14.

Incumbent president Mário Soares

Mário Soares

Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares, GColTE, GCC, GColL, KE , Portuguese politician, served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the 17th President of Portugal from 1986 to 1996.-Family:...

was constitutionally barred from a third term.
The Social Democrats

Social Democratic Party (Portugal)

The Social Democratic Party , is a centre-right liberal conservative political party in Portugal. It is commonly known by its initials, PSD; on ballot papers, its initials appear as PPD/PSD, with the first three letters coming from the party's original name, Democratic People's Party...

were coming from a clear defeat in Portuguese legislative election, 1995

Portuguese legislative election, 1995

The Portuguese legislative election of 1995 took place on October 1. The Socialist Party defeated the Social Democratic Party under the lead of António Guterres, elected some months before, but missed the absolute majority by 4 MPs. The Social Democratic party under the lead of Fernando Nogueira...

, and their former leader, Aníbal Cavaco Silva

Aníbal Cavaco Silva

Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, GCC , is the President of Portugal. He won the Portuguese presidential election on 22 January 2006 and was re-elected on 23 January 2011, for a second five-year term. Cavaco Silva was sworn in on 9 March 2006....

, who had left the office of Prime Minister after ten years at the helm, lost by 400,000 votes to the Mayor of Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

, Jorge Sampaio.

The left other left-wing candidates, Jerónimo de Sousa

Jerónimo de Sousa

Jerónimo Carvalho de Sousa is the General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party since the 17th Congress of the Party in November 2004....

and Alberto Matos, presented by the Portuguese Communist Party

Portuguese Communist Party

The Portuguese Communist Party is a major left-wing political party in Portugal. It is a Marxist-Leninist party, and its organization is based upon democratic centralism. The party also considers itself to be patriotic and internationalist....

and the People's Democratic Union

People's Democratic Union (Portugal)

The People's Democratic Union is a marxist political movement in Portugal. The UDP transformed itself into a political association at its 15th congress due to its merger with other left-wing parties in the Left Bloc....

respectively, both left the race one week before the elections, announcing their support for Jorge Sampaio, as the victory of a left-wing candidate was in doubt. These parties had already supported Sampaio in a coalition that won the local elections in Lisbon. It would be the last time that People's Democratic Union presented a candidate, as two years later it merged with other small left-wing parties and formed the Left Bloc.

Cavaco Silva was supported by the two major right-wing parties, the Social Democratic Party

Social Democratic Party (Portugal)

and the People's Party, and once more, the right wing parties did not manage to win the presidential election.

Sampaio gathered the majority of the votes in all the districts in the South of Portugal, including, of course, the Communist strongholds in Alentejo and Setúbal district. Cavaco managed to win in the more conservative districts of the North (excluding the Oporto district) and also in Leiria (district)

Leiria (district)

The District of Leiria is located in Central Portugal. The District Capital is the city of Leiria which is also the largest city and most populous city.The district is composed by 16 municipalities:[C = city/cidade T = town/vila]...

, traditional strongholds of the right-wing parties.

With only two candidates left on the race, no second round was needed, and Sampaio was inaugurated to his first term in office on 9 March 1996.

Aníbal Cavaco Silva would have to wait ten more years to be elected president in 2006

Portuguese presidential election, 2006

The Portuguese presidential election were held on 22 January 2006 to elect a successor to the incumbent President Jorge Sampaio, who was term-limited from running for a third consecutive term by the Constitution of Portugal...

Results

Summary of the 14 January 1996 Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

presidential

President of Portugal

Portugal has been a republic since 1910, and since that time the head of state has been the president, whose official title is President of the Portuguese Republic ....

election results

Elections in Portugal

Elections in Portugal gives information on election and election results in Portugal.Only the elections since the Carnation Revolution of 1974 are listed here. During the period encompassing the Constitutional Monarchy and the First Republic there were also elections, but only for a limited...

Socialist Party (Portugal)

The Socialist Party , abbreviated to PS, is a social-democratic political party in Portugal. It was founded on 19 April 1973 in the German city of Bad Münstereifel, by militants from Portuguese Socialist Action ....

Aníbal Cavaco Silva

|align=left|Social Democratic Party

Social Democratic Party (Portugal)

Jerónimo de Sousa

Jerónimo Carvalho de Sousa is the General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party since the 17th Congress of the Party in November 2004....

|align=left|Portuguese Communist Party

Portuguese Communist Party

People's Democratic Union (Portugal)

|colspan="2" align="center" |left the race
|-
|colspan="3" align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid
|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,630,187
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
|-
|align=right colspan="3"|Blank ballots
|width="65" align="right" |69,328
|width="40" align="right" |1.20
|-
|align=right colspan="3" |Invalid ballots
|width="65" align="right"|63,463
|width="40" align="right"|1.10
|-
|colspan="3" align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total (turnout 66.29%)
|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,762,978
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|
|-
|colspan=5 align=left|Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
|}

External links

Portuguese Electoral Commission
NSD: European Election Database - Portugal publishes regional level election data; allows for comparisons of election results, 1990-2010

Results

External links

See also