1991 Portuguese presidential election

1991 Portuguese presidential election

← 1986 13 January 1991 1996 →
Turnout	62.16% ( 13.23pp)
Candidate Mário Soares Basílio Horta Carlos Carvalhas Party PS CDS PCP Popular vote 3,459,521 696,379 635,373 Percentage 70.35% 14.16% 12.92%
Results by district Results by municipality Soares   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90% Carvalhas   40-50%   50-60%
President before election Mário Soares PS Elected President Mário Soares PS

Presidential elections were held in Portugal on 13 January 1991.

The re-election of the hugely popular Mário Soares was never in doubt, specially after the then-ruling PSD, led by Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva announced its support. Therefore, the election held on 13 January 1991 was a landslide, and no second round was needed.

As the election of a left-wing candidate was assured, other left-wing parties, the Portuguese Communist Party and the People's Democratic Union, presented their own candidates. The communists presented Carlos Carvalhas, who had been Assistant General Secretary of the Party a year before (Álvaro Cunhal was the secretary-general). Carvalhas would later be elected secretary-general, in 1992.

On the right, as the Social Democratic Party supported Soares, the Democratic and Social Centre presented the only right-wing candidate, Basílio Horta.

Mário Soares achieved the majority of the votes in every district of the country, and 295 of the then 305 municipalities. His score was the biggest ever in a presidential election in Portugal.

Electoral system

Any Portuguese citizen over 35 years old has the opportunity to run for president. In order to do so it is necessary to gather between 7,500 and 15,000 signatures and submit them to the Portuguese Constitutional Court.

According to the Portuguese Constitution, to be elected, a candidate needs a majority of votes. If no candidate gets this majority there will take place a second round between the two most voted candidates.

Candidates

Official candidates

• Mário Soares, Incumbent President since 1986 and eligible for a second term, supported by the Socialist Party, and tacitly by the Social Democratic Party;
• Basílio Horta, Minister in previous governments, supported by the Democratic and Social Centre;
• Carlos Carvalhas, supported by the Portuguese Communist Party and Ecologist Party "The Greens";
• Carlos Manuel Marques, supported by the People's Democratic Union;

Decided not to run

• Francisco Lucas Pires, Former leader of the Democratic and Social Centre (1983-1986);^[1]

Campaign period

Party slogans

Candidates' debates

Opinion polls

  Exit poll

Polling firm	Date released	Sample size					Lead
			Soares PS	Horta CDS	Carvalhas PCP	Marques UDP
Election results	13 Jan 1991	—	70.4	14.2	12.9	2.6	56.2
Euroexpansão/RTP	13 Jan 1991	—	69.5–73.4	14.1–17.2	9.3–12.6	1.6–2.9	55.8

Results

Results by district

Maps

• 
  Strongest candidate by electoral district.
• 
  Strongest candidate by municipality.

References

• "CNE Resultados". Comissão Nacional de Eleições. Archived from the original on 8 April 2005. Retrieved 17 May 2005.
• "Centro de Estudos do Pensamento Político". Archived from the original on 2006-08-18. Retrieved 17 May 2005.

External links

• Portuguese Electoral Commission
• NSD: European Election Database - Portugal Archived 2014-12-20 at the Wayback Machine publishes regional level election data; allows for comparisons of election results, 1990-2010

This page was last edited on 23 March 2024, at 13:44