1991 Portuguese legislative election

1991 Portuguese legislative election

← 1987 6 October 1991 1995 →
230 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 116 seats needed for a majority
Registered	8,462,357 6.7%
Turnout	5,735,431 (67.8%) 3.8 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Aníbal Cavaco Silva Jorge Sampaio Álvaro Cunhal Party PSD PS PCP Alliance CDU Leader since 2 June 1985 15 January 1989 30 September 1987 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Lisbon Last election 148 seats, 50.2% 60 seats, 22.2% 31 seats, 12.1% Seats before 138† 56† 26† Seats won 135 72 17 Seat change 3* 16* 9* Popular vote 2,902,351 1,670,758 504,583 Percentage 50.6% 29.1% 8.8% Swing 0.4 pp 6.9 pp 3.3 pp   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Diogo Freitas do Amaral Manuel Sérgio Party CDS PSN Leader since 31 January 1988 26 June 1990 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 4 seats, 4.4% Did not contest Seats before 4† — Seats won 5 1 Seat change 1* 1 Popular vote 254,317 96,096 Percentage 4.4% 1.7% Swing 0.0 pp New party
Vote winner strength by district. Results by constituency. * Indicates seat change, so this is a nominal figure. † Notional 1987 results with the new seat distribution.
Prime Minister before election Aníbal Cavaco Silva PSD Prime Minister after election Aníbal Cavaco Silva PSD

The 1991 Portuguese legislative election took place on 6 October. The election renewed all 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic. There was a reduction of 20 seats compared with previous elections, due to the 1989 Constitutional revision.^[1]

The Social Democratic Party, under the lead of Cavaco Silva, won a historic third term and won an absolute majority for the second consecutive election. While it lost 13 MPs due to the reduction of the overall number from the original 250 to 230, although just a 3 seat loss if the 1987 election results are tabulated with the new seat distribution, it gained a higher share of the vote than in 1987. Cavaco Silva became the first Prime Minister since Hintze Ribeiro, in 1904, to lead a party into three successive democratic election victories.

The Socialist Party, at the time led by Jorge Sampaio, the future President of Portugal, increased its share by 7 percentage points and gained 12 MPs, a gain of 16 if compared with 1987 with the new seat distribution, but did not manage to avoid the absolute majority of the Social Democrats. Like four and six years earlier, and like 1979 and 1980, the PS failed to win a single district. In the first legislative election after the fall of the Eastern Bloc, the communist dominated Democratic Unity Coalition lost much of its electoral influence, losing almost 10 MPs and 4 points of the votes, but were able to hold on to the district of Beja by a slight margin over the PSD.

On the right, the CDS could not recover its past influence, mainly to the effect of tactical voting for the Social Democratic Party by right-wing voters, increasing its parliamentary group by only 1 MP. The National Solidarity Party, using a populist campaign, achieved for the first time an MP, in what would be the only presence of such party in the Parliament.

Voter turnout fell to 67.8 percent, and for the first time below 70 percent of the electorate.