1993 Portuguese local elections explained

Election Name:	1993 Portuguese local elections
Country:	Portugal
Type:	parliamentary
Previous Election:	1989 Portuguese local elections
Previous Year:	1989
Next Election:	1997 Portuguese local elections
Next Year:	1997
Seats For Election:	All 305 Portuguese municipalities and 4,260 Portuguese Parishes All 2,015 local government councils
Election Date:	12 December 1993
Turnout:	63.4% 2.5 pp
1Blank:	Mayors
2Blank:	Mayors +/–
3Blank:	Councillors
4Blank:	Councillors +/–
Leader2:	Aníbal Cavaco Silva
Party2:	Social Democratic Party (Portugal)
Last Election2:	114 mayors, 35.4%
Popular Vote2:	1,824,519
Percentage2:	33.7%
Swing2:	1.7 pp
1Data2:	116
2Data2:	2
3Data2:	806
4Data2:	13
Party1:	Socialist Party (Portugal)
Last Election1:	120 mayors, 36.8%
Popular Vote1:	2,175,954^[1]
Percentage1:	40.2%
Swing1:	3.4 pp
1Data1:	127^[2]
2Data1:	7
3Data1:	822^[3]
4Data1:	70
Colour4:	FF0000
Party4:	PCP
Alliance4:	CDU
Last Election4:	50 mayors, 12.9%
Popular Vote4:	689,923
Percentage4:	12.8%
Swing4:	0.1 pp
1Data4:	49
2Data4:	1
3Data4:	246
4Data4:	7
Image5:	CDS
Leader5:	Manuel Monteiro
Party5:	CDS
Last Election5:	20 mayors, 9.1%
Popular Vote5:	454,047
Percentage5:	8.4%
Swing5:	0.7 pp
1Data5:	13
2Data5:	7
3Data5:	135
4Data5:	44

Local elections were held in Portugal on 12 December 1993. The elections consisted of three separate elections in the 305 Portuguese municipalities, the election for the Municipal Chambers, whose winner is automatically elected mayor, similar to first-past-the-post (FPTP), another election for the Municipal Assembly and a last one for the lower-level Parish Assembly, whose winner is elected parish president. This last was held separately in the more than 4,200 parishes around the country.

The Socialist Party (PS) maintained and increased their status as the largest local party. The party won 7 more cities compared with 1989 and, for the first time ever, polled above 40 percent of the votes in an nationwide election.^[4] The PS hold on the control of big cities like Lisbon, here with a record 57 percent of the votes, Porto and Coimbra, and were also able to win two big cities in the Lisbon area from the PSD, Cascais and Sintra. Note for the very narrow defeat of the PS, under the candidacy of future Prime Minister António Costa, in Loures.^[5]

The Social Democratic Party (PSD), although winning 2 more cities compared with last time, saw the gap between them and the PS widen, but, at the same, were able to hold onto their ground. The party suffered some losses, like they did in 1989, in the big urban centers but were able to win some cities from the PS like Pombal and Ponta Delgada. The elections happened as Cavaco Silva's government celebrated 8 years in power, and, at the same time Portugal was exiting the early 1990s recession, which may have damaged, in some degree, the Social Democrats prospects in this election.

The Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU) was able to hold on to their 1989 scores losing just one city and 7 councillors. The coalition between the Communists and the Greens were able to hold on to their bastions of Beja, Évora and Almada. The share of the vote for the CDU was also unchanged compared with 1989.

The People's Party (CDS) was the big loser of the elections. The party lost 7 cities, most of them for the PSD and PS, achieving their worst results till that date as they only won 13 cities out of 305. The party lost many of their bastions like Mirandela or Paredes to the PS or the PSD. The party also achieved their worst share of vote till that time, 8.4 percent.

Turnout in these elections increased compared with the 1989 election, as 63.4 percent of the electorate cast a ballot, the best turnout showing since 1982.

Parties

The main political forces involved in the election were:

• People's Party (CDS)¹,
• Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU)¹
• Socialist Party (PS)¹
• Social Democratic Party (PSD)

¹ The PS formed a coalitions with CDS, CDU and UDP in several municipalities.

Results

Municipal Councils

National summary of votes and seats

|-! rowspan="2" colspan=2 style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Parties! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±pp swing! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Candidacies! colspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Councillors! colspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Mayors|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Total! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|±! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Total! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|±|-| |1,953,279||36.10||3.7||||796||68||126||10|-| |1,824,519||33.72||2.3||||806||26||116||3|-| |689,923||12.75||0.1||||246||7||49||1|-| |454,047||8.39||0.7||||135||44||13||7|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU / UDP / PSR|200,816||3.71||0.0||||11||2||1||0|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#000080 align="center" | |align=left|National Solidarity|28,716||0.53||—||||3||—||0||—|-| |23,225||0.43||—||||2||—||0||—|-| |16,090||0.30||0.2||||0||0||0||0|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|Socialist / People's|11,435||0.21||0.2||||7||8||0||3|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU / UDP / PDA|10,234||0.19||—||||4||—||0||—|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#E2062C align="center" | |align=left|People's Democratic Union|8,161||0.15||0.2||||0||4||0||1|-| |1,456||0.03||0.8||||0||4||0||0|-| |1,387||0.03||0.2||||1||0||0||0|-| |287||0.01||0.0||||0||0||0||0|-| |269||0.00||0.1||||0||1||0||0|-| |216||0.00||0.1||||0||1||0||0|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU |190||0.00||—||||4||—||0||—|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,223,673|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|96.54|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.0|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|—|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|2,015|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|13|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|305|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0|-|colspan=2|Blank ballots|103,686||1.92||0.1||colspan=6 rowspan=4||-|colspan=2|Invalid ballots|83,251||1.54||0.1|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,410,610|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||-|colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout||8,529,737||63.43||2.5|-| colspan=11 align=left | Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições |}

City control

The following table lists party control in all district capitals, as well as in municipalities above 100,000 inhabitants. Population estimates from the 1991 Census.^[6]

Municipality	Population	Previous control		New control
Almada	151,783		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)
Amadora	181,774		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)
Aveiro	66,444		CDS – People's Party (CDS–PP)		CDS – People's Party (CDS–PP)
Barcelos	111,733		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Beja	35,827		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)
Braga	141,256		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Bragança	33,055		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Cascais	153,294		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Socialist Party (PS)
Castelo Branco	54,310		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Coimbra	139,052		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Évora	53,754		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)
Faro	50,761		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Funchal	115,403		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Gondomar	143,178		Socialist Party (PS)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Guarda	38,765		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Guimarães	157,589		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Leiria	102,762		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Lisbon	663,394		PS / CDU / UDP / PSR		PS / CDU / UDP / PSR
Loures	322,158		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)
Matosinhos	151,682		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Oeiras	151,342		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Ponta Delgada	61,989		PS / CDS–PP		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Portalegre	26,111		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Porto	302,472		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Santarém	62,621		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Santa Maria da Feira	135,964		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Santo Tirso	102,593		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Seixal	116,912		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)
Setúbal	103,634		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Sintra	260,951		PSD / CDS–PP / PPM		Socialist Party (PS)
Viana do Castelo	83,095		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Socialist Party (PS)
Vila Franca de Xira	103,571		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)
Vila Nova de Famalicão	114,338		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Vila Nova de Gaia	248,565		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Vila Real	46,300		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Viseu	83,601		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)

Municipal Assemblies

National summary of votes and seats

|-! rowspan="2" colspan=2 style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Parties! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±pp swing! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Candidacies! colspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Mandates|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Total! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|±|- | |align=right|1,930,816|align=right|35.70|align=right|2.5|align=right||align=right|2,629|align=right|200|-| |align=right|1,829,087|align=right|33.82|align=right|1.3|align=right||align=right|2,671|align=right|98|- | |align=right|704,980 |align=right|13.04|align=right|0.8|align=right||align=right|803|align=right|46|-| |align=right|445,065 |align=right|8.23|align=right|1.1|align=right||align=right|556|align=right|156|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU / UDP / PSR|align=right|194,501|align=right|3.60|align=right|0.2|align=right||align=right|32|align=right|9|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#000080 align="center" | |align=left|National Solidarity|align=right|23,260|align=right|0.43|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|16|align=right|—|-| |align=right|22,653|align=right|0.42|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|11|align=right|—|-| |align=right|12,063 |align=right|0.22|align=right|0.0|align=right||align=right|1|align=right|1|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|Socialist / People's|align=right|11,905|align=right|0.22|align=right|0.5|align=right||align=right|24|align=right|17|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#E2062C align="center" | |align=left|People's Democratic Union|align=right|11,009 |align=right|0.20|align=right|0.2|align=right||align=right|2|align=right|12|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU / UDP / PDA|align=right|9,958 |align=right| 0.18|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|11|align=right|—|-| |align=right|9,733|align=right|0.18|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|0|align=right|—|-| |align=right|3,494|align=right|0.06|align=right| 0.1|align=right| |align=right| 0|align=right| 2|-| |align=right| 1,476|align=right| 0.03|align=right|0.9|align=right||align=right|2|align=right|24|-| |align=right|1,340|align=right|0.02|align=right|0.2|align=right||align=right|4|align=right|2|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU |align=right| 96|align=right| 0.00|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|7|align=right|—|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,211,436|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|96.36|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.1|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|—|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|6,769|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|16|-|colspan=2|Blank ballots|111,834||2.07||0.0||colspan=6 rowspan=4||-|colspan=2|Invalid ballots|85,042||1.57||0.1|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,408,312|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||-|colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout||8,530,297||63.40||3.6|-| colspan=11 align=left | Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições |}

Parish Assemblies

National summary of votes and seats

|-! rowspan="2" colspan=2 style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Parties! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±pp swing! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Candidacies! colspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Mandates! colspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Presidents|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Total! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|±! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Total! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|±|-| |1,860,188||34.53||2.3||||12,312||1,124|||||-| |1,810,841||33.62||0.7||||13,679||442|||||-| |714,001||13.26||0.8||||2,747||177|||||-| |418,998||7.78||0.6||||2,719||725|||||-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU / UDP / PSR|199,275||3.70||0.2||||447||55|||||-|style="width: 8px" bgcolor=gray align="center" ||align=left|Independents|123,351||2.29||0.4||||1,234||225|||||-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#000080 align="center" | |align=left|National Solidarity|21,462||0.40||—||||55||—||||—|-| |12,490||0.23||—||||38||—||||—|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|Socialist / People's|11,913||0.22||0.5|||||124||57|||||-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU / UDP / PDA|10,593||0.20||—||||80||—||||—|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#E2062C align="center" | |align=left|People's Democratic Union|7,639||0.14||0.4||||2||28|||||-| |3,820||0.07||0.0||||1||1|||||-| |1,525||0.03||0.6|||||10||48|||||-| |1,163||0.02||0.2|||||8||5|||||-| |306||0.01||0.0||||2||7|||||-| |77||0.00||—||||0||—||||—|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,197,642|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|96.49|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.1|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|—|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|33,458|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|458|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||-|colspan=2|Blank ballots|99,518||1.85||0.0||colspan=6 rowspan=4||-|colspan=2|Invalid ballots|89,490||1.66||0.1|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,386,650|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||-|colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout||8,530,297||63.15||7.9|-| colspan=11 align=left | Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições |}

See also

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

External links

• Official results site, Portuguese Justice Ministry
• Portuguese Electoral Commission

Notes and References

1. Sum of votes between PS-only lists and lists with other parties.
2. Number of municipalities won between PS-only lists and lists with other parties. PS-only lists: 126; PS-coalition lists: 1.
3. Sum of councillors between PS-only lists and lists with other parties.
4. . 2017. As cores políticas que pintam o mapa do poder local de 1976 a 2013 . pt.
5. Público . 3 November 2016. Quando o burro de Costa ganhou ao ferrari mas costa perdeu, Salvou se o casaco . pt. 11 February 2024.
6. Web site: Instituto Nacional de Estatística (Recenseamentos Gerais da População). www.ine.pt. . pt . 17 July 2021.