Portuguese presidential election, 1996

Portuguese presidential election, 1996
Portugal
14 January 1996
Turnout 66,29%
 
Candidate Jorge Sampaio Aníbal Cavaco Silva
Party PS PSD
Popular vote 3,035,056 2,595,131
Percentage 53.9% 46.1%
President before election

Mário Soares
PS

 Elected President

Jorge Sampaio
PS

Portugal

This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
Portugal

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

Incumbent president Mário Soares was constitutionally barred from a third consecutive term. The Social Democrats were coming from a clear defeat in Portuguese legislative election, 1995, and their former leader, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who had left the office of Prime Minister after ten years at the helm, lost by 400,000 votes to the Mayor of Lisbon, Jorge Sampaio.

The left other left-wing candidates, Jerónimo de Sousa and Alberto Matos, presented by the Portuguese Communist Party and the People's Democratic Union 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 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 Porto district) and also in Leiria district, 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.

Results

Summary of the 14 January 1996 Portuguese presidential election results

 
Candidates Supporting parties First round
Votes %
Jorge Sampaio Socialist Party 3,035,056 53.91
Aníbal Cavaco Silva Social Democratic Party, People's Party 2,595,131 46.09
Jerónimo de Sousa [A] Portuguese Communist Party, Ecologist Party "The Greens" left the race
Alberto Matos [B] People's Democratic Union left the race
Total valid 5,630,187 100.00
Blank ballots 69,328 1.20
Invalid ballots 63,463 1.10
Total (turnout 66.29%) 5,762,978
A B Both candidates left the race in favour of Jorge Sampaio.
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
Vote share 1st Round
Jorge Sampaio
  
 53.91%
Aníbal Cavaco Silva
  
 46.09%
Blank/Invalid
  
 2.30%
Abstencion
  
 33.71%

References

See also

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