Portugal holds its seventeenth legislative elections on Sunday. The vote comes following the decision of Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to dissolve Parliament and call for early legislative elections on March 10, following the resignation of Prime Minister Antonio Costa against the backdrop of an influence-peddling case.
The election campaign lasted 15 days, starting at midnight on February 25 and ending at midnight on March 8. Voters have one day to decide whether to vote (March 9).
– More than 10.8 million voters are invited to vote to elect 230 representatives. 5,800,000 people will vote for the first time during these elections.
– Voting will take place from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Last Sunday, nearly 210,000 Portuguese voters cast their votes in advance, a smaller number than in the 2022 legislative elections (315,785 voters).
The budget for the general elections exceeds 8 million euros.
– Voting for the Portuguese community abroad: Voting for Portuguese abroad will take place from 9 to 10 March.
– Preliminary voting results are expected to appear on Sunday, March 10, after 9 p.m. (local time).
– 19 political forces, including a party founded this year, are running in the parliamentary elections, i.e. half of their number in 2022.
– Of the 230 members of the Portuguese Parliament to be elected in the general elections, Lisbon remains the largest electoral district (48 members of Parliament are elected there), followed by Porto (40 members).
As for the other 144 representatives, they will be distributed among the governorates according to their population. In the autonomous regions, six deputies are elected in Madeira and five in the Azores. All representatives are elected by universal, free, direct and secret suffrage.
The electoral division includes 22 electoral districts. The number of representatives to be elected in each electoral district depends on the number of citizens registered in it, with the exception of districts designated for voters residing abroad.
– Electoral districts on the mainland (18) correspond to district areas and are identified by the names of the respective capitals.
There is one electoral district in the Autonomous Community of Madeira and one in the Autonomous Community of the Azores, which are designated by name.
– Portuguese citizens residing abroad also elect deputies with a number determined in advance by law, two from the European constituency and two others from the non-European constituency.
– Nominations shall be submitted exclusively by political parties, individually or by coalition, and the lists may include citizens who are not affiliated with the (independent) parties in question. – All registered voters nationwide can vote in advance, one week before the election date.
The first legislative elections took place two years after the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1976. After that, general elections were held on February 12, 1979, May 10, 1980, April 25, 1983, May 10, 1985, July 19, 1987, June 10, 1991, October 1, 1995, October 10, 1999, March 17, 2002, February 20, 2005, September 27, 2009, June 5, 2011, April 10, 2015, June 10, 2019 and on January 30, 2022.
With a map
