Next Portuguese legislative election

Next Portuguese legislative election

On or before 8 October 2028
All 230 seats in the Assembly of the Republic 116 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Leader Luís Montenegro Pedro Nuno Santos André Ventura Party PSD PS CH Alliance AD Leader since 28 May 2022 16 December 2023 9 April 2019 Leader's seat Lisbon Aveiro Lisbon Last election 80 seats, 28.8% 78 seats, 28.0% 50 seats, 18.1% Seats needed 36 38 66   Leader Rui Rocha Mariana Mortágua Paulo Raimundo Party IL BE PCP Alliance CDU Leader since 22 January 2023 28 May 2023 12 November 2022 Leader's seat Braga Lisbon Lisbon Last election 8 seats, 4.9% 5 seats, 4.4% 4 seats, 3.2% Seats needed 108 111 112   Leader Rui Tavares Inês Sousa Real Party LIVRE PAN Leader since 12 May 2024 6 June 2021 Leader's seat Lisbon Lisbon Last election 4 seats, 3.2% 1 seat, 2.0% Seats needed 112 115
Incumbent Prime Minister Luís Montenegro PSD

The next legislative election in Portugal will take place on or before 8 October 2028 to elect members of the Assembly of the Republic to the 17th Legislature. All 230 seats to the Assembly of the Republic will be at stake.

Due to the instability of the minority government led by Luís Montenegro, the likelihood of a snap election well before the scheduled end of the current Parliament in 2028 is considered to be very high.

Background

The Democratic Alliance (AD), composed by Social Democratic Party (PSD), CDS – People's Party (CDS–PP) and the People's Monarchist Party (PPM), led by PSD leader Luís Montenegro, won by a very narrow margin the 2024 legislative election with almost 29 percent of the votes and 80 seats in the 230 seat Assembly of the Republic. The Socialist Party (PS), in power between 2015 and 2024 and led by Pedro Nuno Santos, elected in the aftermath of the resignation of then Prime Minister António Costa due to an investigation around alleged corruption involving the award of contracts for lithium and hydrogen businesses, suffered a big decrease in support winning 28 percent of the votes and 78 seats. The populist/far-right party Chega (CH) surged in the elections, gathering 18 percent of the votes and 50 seats in Parliament, the best result for third party in decades and becoming kingmaker. The Liberal Initiative (IL) was able to hold on to their eight seats and gather five percent of the votes. The left-wing/far-left parties, the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Left Bloc (BE), achieved, again, disappointing results with BE holding on to their five seats and four percent of the votes, while the Communists' alliance got their worst result ever with just three percent of the votes and four seats. LIVRE nearly surpassed PCP by gathering also three percent of the votes and four seats. People Animals Nature (PAN) was able to win just one seat.

Eleven days after election day, on 21 March 2024, Luis Montenegro was asked by President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to form a government, a minority one in this case. The new government was sworn into office on 2 April 2024.

2025 budget crisis

With the lack of a workable majority, the AD minority government is forced to negotiate with Opposition parties to pass major legislation and this has created problems regarding the prospects of a budget for 2025. The Government decided to negotiate with the Socialist Party (PS), however, the prospects of a positive outcome from these negotiations were slim as the PS rejected the corporate tax cuts and the proposed "Youth IRS" scheme, which would provide an income tax rate cut for young people under the age of 35, and accused the government of not giving in. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa warned that a lack of a deal could lead to snap legislative elections, and admitted he was putting pressure on both the major parties to reach a deal.

On 3 October 2024, Luís Montenegro "dropped" several parts of his government's Youth IRS scheme and corporate tax cuts by bringing his new proposals closer to policies defended by the PS, calling it an "irrefutable proposal" for the Socialists. Pedro Nuno Santos recognized the concessions made by the government, but pressed for more conditions on corporate tax cuts, mainly on their timing. The Prime Minister rejected these last conditions made by the PS, but said he was "confident" in the budget being approved by Parliament.

On 17 October 2024, the general-secretary of the PS, Pedro Nuno Santos, announced that the Socialist Party would abstain in the budget vote, thus ensuring the approval of the document with the sole votes of the AD coalition. On 31 October, Parliament passed the budget in its first general reading by a 80-72 vote, with the 78 PS members abstaining. The final vote is expected for 29 November 2024.

Leadership changes and challenges

Liberal Initiative

On 8 April 2024, former 2021 Presidential candidate Tiago Mayan Gonçalves, announced a manifesto called "United by liberalism" and said he will be a candidate for the party's leadership when a ballot arrives, thus challenging incumbent leader Rui Rocha. On 20 June 2024, Mayan Gonçalves officially launched his bid for the party's leadership. After it was revealed that Tiago Mayan forged signatures under his role as Parish President of Aldoar, Foz do Douro e Nevogilde, he dropped out from the leadership race.

Date

According to the Portuguese Constitution, an election must be called between 14 September and 14 October of the year that the legislature ends. The election is called by the President of Portugal but is not called at the request of the Prime Minister; however, the President must listen to all of the parties represented in Parliament and the election day must be announced at least 60 days before the election. If an election is called during an ongoing legislature (dissolution of parliament) it must be held at least after 55 days. Election day is the same in all multi-seats constituencies, and should fall on a Sunday or national holiday. The next legislative election must, therefore, take place no later than 8 October 2028.

The President of Portugal has the power to dissolve the Assembly of the Republic by his/her own will. Unlike in other countries, the President can refuse to dissolve the parliament at the request of the Prime Minister or the Assembly of the Republic and all the parties represented in Parliament. If the Prime Minister resigns, the President can appoint a new Prime Minister after listening to all the parties represented in Parliament and then the government programme must be subject to discussion by the Assembly of the Republic, whose members of parliament may present a motion to reject the upcoming government, or dissolve Parliament and call new elections.

Electoral system

The Assembly of the Republic has 230 members elected to four-year terms. Governments do not require absolute majority support of the Assembly to hold office, as even if the number of opposers of government is larger than that of the supporters, the number of opposers still needs to be equal or greater than 116 (absolute majority) for both the Government's Programme to be rejected or for a motion of no confidence to be approved.

The number of seats assigned to each constituency depends on the district magnitude. The use of the d'Hondt method makes for a higher effective threshold than certain other allocation methods such as the Hare quota or Sainte-Laguë method, which are more generous to small parties.

The distribution of MPs by constituency for the 2024 legislative election was the following:

Constituency	Number of MPs	Map
Lisbon	48
Porto	40
Braga and Setúbal	19
Aveiro	16
Leiria	10
Coimbra, Faro and Santarém	9
Viseu	8
Madeira	6
Azores, Viana do Castelo and Vila Real	5
Castelo Branco	4
Beja, Bragança, Évora and Guarda	3
Portalegre, Europe and Outside Europe	2

Parties

The table below lists parties currently represented in the Assembly of the Republic.

Name			Ideology	Political position	Leader	2024 result		Status
						%	Seats
	PPD/PSD	Social Democratic Party Partido Social Democrata	Liberal conservatism	Centre-right	Luís Montenegro	28.8%	78 / 230	Governing coalition
	CDS–PP	CDS – People's Party CDS – Partido Popular	Christian democracy Conservatism	Centre-right to right-wing	Nuno Melo		2 / 230
	PS	Socialist Party Partido Socialista	Social democracy Progressivism	Centre-left	Pedro Nuno Santos	28.0%	78 / 230	Opposition
	CH	Enough! Chega!	National conservatism Right-wing populism	Right-wing to far-right	André Ventura	18.1%	50 / 230
	IL	Liberal Initiative Iniciativa Liberal	Classical liberalism Right-libertarianism	Centre-right to right-wing	Rui Rocha	4.9%	8 / 230
	BE	Left Bloc Bloco de Esquerda	Democratic socialism Left-wing populism	Left-wing to far-left	Mariana Mortágua	4.4%	5 / 230
	PCP	Portuguese Communist Party Partido Comunista Português	Communism Marxism-Leninism	Left-wing to far-left	Paulo Raimundo	3.2%	4 / 230
	L	FREE LIVRE	Green politics Pro-Europeanism	Centre-left to left-wing	Rui Tavares	3.2%	4 / 230
	PAN	People Animals Nature Pessoas-Animais-Natureza	Animal welfare Environmentalism	Centre-left	Inês Sousa Real	2.0%	1 / 230

Opinion polling

Main article: Opinion polling for the next Portuguese legislative election

This section is an excerpt from Opinion polling for the next Portuguese legislative election § Graphical Summary.[edit]

Graph of the polling for the next Portuguese Legislative Election with 14 day average bar chart.

Polling aggregations

Polling aggregator	Last update									Lead
PolitPro	27 Oct 2024	31.7	29.1	16.7	6.4	4.7	3.2	3.2	2.0	2.6
Marktest	23 Oct 2024	31.1	29.0	15.7	6.6	5.2	3.3	3.3	2.1	2.1
Politico	23 Oct 2024	31	29	17	6	4	3	3	2	2
Europe Elects	7 Oct 2024	30	30	14	8	6	3	3	2	Tie
2024 legislative election	10 March 2024	28.8 80	28.0 78	18.1 50	4.9 8	4.4 5	3.2 4	3.2 4	2.0 1	0.8

See also

• Elections in Portugal
• List of political parties in Portugal
• Politics of Portugal

External links

• Marktest Opinion Poll Tracker
• Official results site, Portuguese Justice Ministry
• Portuguese Electoral Commission
• ERC – Official publication of polls
• Average of polls and seat simulator