Portuguese presidential election, 2006

The Portuguese presidential election were held on 22 January 2006 to elect a successor to the incumbent President

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 ....

Jorge Sampaio, who was term-limited

Term limit

A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms a person may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method to curb the potential for monopoly, where a leader effectively becomes "president for...

from running for a third consecutive term by the Constitution of Portugal

Constitution of Portugal

The first Portuguese Constitution was drafted in 1822. Several revolutions led to the constitutions of 1826 , 1838 , 1911 , 1933 , and 1976 ....

. The result was a victory in the first round for 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....

of the Social Democratic Party

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...

candidate, the former Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Portugal

Prime Minister is the current title of the chief of the Portuguese Government. As chief executive, the Prime Minister coordinates the action of ministers, representing the Government from the other organs of state, accountable to Parliament and keeps the President informed...

, won 50.59 percent of the vote in the first round, just over the majority

Majority

A majority is a subset of a group consisting of more than half of its members. This can be compared to a plurality, which is a subset larger than any other subset; i.e. a plurality is not necessarily a majority as the largest subset may consist of less than half the group's population...

required to avoid a runoff election

Two-round system

The two-round system is a voting system used to elect a single winner where the voter casts a single vote for their chosen candidate...

. Voter turnout

Voter turnout

Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...

was 62.60 percent for eligible voters.

Candidates

Thirteen citizens sought election officially, but only six gathered the 7,500 signatures required under the constitution to be a candidate in the poll:

Manuel Alegre
Manuel Alegre
Manuel Alegre de Melo Duarte, GCL , is a Portuguese poet and politician, member of the Socialist Party, and a candidate to the Portuguese presidential election, 2006...

, a Socialist Party politician who ran without the official backing of his party;
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....

, Prime Minister from 1985 to 1995, supported by the Social Democratic Party
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...

and by the People's Party;
Francisco Louçã
Francisco Louçã
Francisco Anacleto Louçã is a Portuguese economist and politician, first elected in 1999.. He is the son of António Seixas Louçã, who commanded a ship on the Tagus River during the Carnation Revolution, and wife Noémia da Rocha Neves Anacleto , a lawyer.Louçã was an active opponent of the...

, coordinator of the political commission of the Left Bloc;
Garcia Pereira
Garcia Pereira
António Pestana Garcia Pereira is a Portuguese lawyer and politician, and the current leader of the maoist PCTP/MRPP. He was a candidate in the 2006 presidential election, where placed sixth and last with 0.44 per cent of the vote. He had already ran in the 2001 presidential election, getting 1.69...

, Secretary-General of the PCTP/MRPP;
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:...

, President from 1986 to 1996, the official candidate of the Socialist Party
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 ....

; and
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....

, Secretary-General of 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....

, also supported by the Ecologist Party "The Greens".

All the candidates except for Cavaco Silva are considered to be from the Portuguese political left.

The other potential candidates who, according to the Constitutional Court

Portuguese Constitutional Court

The Portuguese Constitutional Court is a special court, defined by the Portuguese Constitution as part of the judicial branch of the Portuguese political organization. Unlike the rest of the country's courts, the Constitutional Court has important characteristics, such as a special composition,...

, did not gather enough signatures, were:

Josué Rodrigues Gonçalo Pedro;
Luís Filipe Guerra, leader of the Humanist Party
Humanist Party (Portugal)
The Humanist Party is a minor center-left political party in Portugal. It has no representatives in the Assembly of the Republic, the Portuguese legislature.The party is member of the Humanist International....

;
Teresa Lameiro;
Manuela Magno, nuclear physicist;
Carmelinda Pereira, leader of the Workers Party of Socialist Unity
Workers Party of Socialist Unity
Workers Party of Socialist Unity is a small Trotskyist political party in Portugal, founded in 1976 after a split from the Portuguese Socialist Party. It is a member of the Fourth International led by Pierre Lambert....

;
Luís Botelho Ribeiro; and
Diamantino da Silva;

Results

Summary of the 22 January 2006 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...

Aníbal Cavaco Silva

|align=left|Social Democratic Party

Social Democratic Party (Portugal)

Manuel Alegre

Manuel Alegre de Melo Duarte, GCL , is a Portuguese poet and politician, member of the Socialist Party, and a candidate to the Portuguese presidential election, 2006...

|align=left|Independent

Independent (politician)

In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...

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:...

|align=left|Socialist Party

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 ....

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

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....

Francisco Louçã

Francisco Anacleto Louçã is a Portuguese economist and politician, first elected in 1999.. He is the son of António Seixas Louçã, who commanded a ship on the Tagus River during the Carnation Revolution, and wife Noémia da Rocha Neves Anacleto , a lawyer.Louçã was an active opponent of the...

|align=left|Left Bloc
|align="right" |292,198
|align="right" |5.32
|-
|style="width: 8px" bgcolor=#CC0000 align="center" |
|align=left|António Garcia Pereira
|align=left|PCTP/MRPP
|align="right" |23,983
|align="right" |0.44
|-
|colspan="3" align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid
|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,487,347
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
|-
|align=right colspan="3"|Blank ballots
|width="65" align="right" |59,636
|width="40" align="right" |1.07
|-
|align=right colspan="3" |Invalid ballots
|width="65" align="right"|43,149
|width="40" align="right"|0.77
|-
|colspan="3" align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total (turnout 61.53%)
|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,590,132
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|
|-
|colspan=5 align=left|Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
|}

External links

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

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