1997 Portuguese local elections explained

Election Name:	1997 Portuguese local elections
Country:	Portugal
Type:	parliamentary
Previous Election:	1993 Portuguese local elections
Previous Year:	1993
Next Election:	2001 Portuguese local elections
Next Year:	2001
Seats For Election:	All 305 Portuguese municipalities and 4,260 Portuguese Parishes All 2,021 local government councils
Election Date:	14 December 1997
Turnout:	60.1% 3.3 pp
1Blank:	Mayors
2Blank:	Mayors +/–
3Blank:	Councillors
4Blank:	Councillors +/–
Leader2:	Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
Party2:	Social Democratic Party (Portugal)
Last Election2:	116 mayors, 33.7%
Popular Vote2:	1,886,242^[1]
Percentage2:	35.2%
Swing2:	1.5 pp
1Data2:	127^[2]
2Data2:	11
3Data2:	810^[3]
4Data2:	4
Party1:	Socialist Party (Portugal)
Last Election1:	127 mayors, 40.2%
Popular Vote1:	2,206,315^[4]
Percentage1:	41.3%
Swing1:	1.1 pp
1Data1:	128^[5]
2Data1:	1
3Data1:	879^[6]
4Data1:	57
Colour4:	FF0000
Party4:	PCP
Alliance4:	CDU
Last Election4:	49 mayors, 12.8%
Popular Vote4:	643,956
Percentage4:	12.0%
Swing4:	0.8 pp
1Data4:	41
2Data4:	8
3Data4:	236
4Data4:	10
Image5:	CDS
Leader5:	Manuel Monteiro
Party5:	CDS
Last Election5:	13 mayors, 8.4%
Popular Vote5:	302,763^[7]
Percentage5:	6.3%
Swing5:	2.1 pp
1Data5:	8
2Data5:	5
3Data5:	87^[8]
4Data5:	48

Local elections were held in Portugal on 14 December 1997. 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 as the largest local political force, although only just, winning 128 cities, one more compared to 1993, and increasing their vote share to above 41 percent. In reality, PS and PSD basically tied in this elections, but the Socialists were able to hold on to big cities like Lisbon, Porto, Sintra and Coimbra.^[9] On the other hand, the PS lost some cities to the PSD, particularly Vila Nova de Gaia and Figueira da Foz, the latter won by Pedro Santana Lopes, future Lisbon mayor and Prime Minister.

The Social Democratic Party (PSD) made big gains, winning 11 cities and basically catching up with the Socialists. They also increased their share of vote to 35 percent. The PSD gained many cities from the PS, such as Bragança, Covilhã, Silves, Tavira and Alcobaça. Although the PSD didn't performed very strongly in the big urban centers, they performed extremely well in many medium and small cities across the country, but that same bad performance in the big urban centers, such as Lisbon and Porto, created criticisms to the leadership of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.^[10]

The election was quite bad for Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU), as they continued their fall in local politics. The Communist/Green coalition lost 8 cities and decreased their vote share to 12 percent. The CDU lost many of their bastions to the PS, such as Cuba, Amadora, Vila Franca de Xira and Sesimbra. They also saw a decrease in number of councillors, although here the fall was soft, as they lost just 10 councillors compared to 1993.

The People's Party (PP) also continued its decline in local politics. The party only won 8 cities, a fall of 5 cities, and dropped its share of the vote to the lowest level till that time, 5.7 percent. They lost big cities like Aveiro to the PS and Vila Verde to the PSD. One surprise in the elections was the victory of the People's Monarchist Party (PPM) in Penalva do Castelo, Viseu district, over the People's Party.

Turnout in these elections dropped in comparison with the 1993 election, as 60.1 percent of the electorate cast a ballot.

Parties

The main political forces involved in the election were:

• People's Party (CDS–PP) (only in some municipalities)¹,
• Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU)²
• Socialist Party (PS)²
• Social Democratic Party (PSD) (only in some municipalities)¹
• People's Monarchist Party (PPM)

¹ The PSD and the CDS–PP formed coalitions in some municipalities.
² The PS formed a coalition with CDU and UDP in Lisbon.

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"|±|-| |2,041,307||38.07||2.0||||869||73||127||1|-| |1,761,383||32.85||0.9||||803||3||127||11|-| |643,956||12.01||0.8||||236||10||41||8|-| |302,763||5.65||2.8||||83||52||8||5|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU / UDP|165,008||3.08||0.8||||10||7||1||0|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF9900 align="center" | |align=left|Social Democratic / People's|124,859||2.33||—||||7||—||0||—|-|style="width: 8px" bgcolor=#0093DD align="center" ||align=left|People's / Social Democratic|35,495||0.66||—||||4||—||0||—|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#E2062C align="center" | |align=left|People's Democratic Union|21,079||0.39||0.2||||0||0||0||0|-| |18,674||0.35||0.1||||0||0||0||0|-|style="width: 8px" bgcolor=red align="center" ||align=left|PSR / Politics XXI|9,175||0.17||—||||0||—||0||—|-| |9,126||0.17||—||||0||—||0||—|- | |7,129||0.13||0.1||||5||5||1||1|-| |6,995||0.13||—||||1||—||0||—|-| |4,361||0.08||0.1||||1||1||0||0|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#000080 align="center" | |align=left|National Solidarity|2,301||0.04||0.5||||0||3||0||0|-| |1,884||0.04||0.4||||2||0||0||0|-| |1,483||0.03||0.0||||0||0||0||0|-| |567||0.01||0.0||||0||0||0||0|-| |120||0.00||—||||0||—||0||—|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,157,665|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|96.18|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.4|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|—|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|2,021|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|6|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|305|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0|-|colspan=2|Blank ballots|117,360||2.19||0.3||colspan=6 rowspan=4||-|colspan=2|Invalid ballots|87,584||1.63||0.1|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,362,609|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||-|colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout||8,922,182||60.12||3.3|-| 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.^[11]

Municipality	Population	Previous control		New control
Almada	151,783		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)
Amadora	181,774		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)		Socialist Party (PS)
Aveiro	66,444		CDS – People's Party (CDS–PP)		Socialist Party (PS)
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)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Cascais	153,294		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Castelo Branco	54,310		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Socialist Party (PS)
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		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		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		PS / CDU / UDP
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		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
Portalegre	26,111		Social Democratic Party (PSD)		Socialist Party (PS)
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		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Viana do Castelo	83,095		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Vila Franca de Xira	103,571		Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU)		Socialist Party (PS)
Vila Nova de Famalicão	114,338		Socialist Party (PS)		Socialist Party (PS)
Vila Nova de Gaia	248,565		Socialist Party (PS)		Social Democratic Party (PSD)
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|2,030,025|align=right|37.85|align=right|2.2|align=right||align=right|2,887|align=right|258|-| |align=right|1,633,778|align=right|30.46|align=right|3.4|align=right||align=right|2,579|align=right|92|- | |align=right|668,896 |align=right|12.47|align=right|0.6|align=right||align=right|798|align=right|5|-| |align=right|395,209|align=right|7.37|align=right|0.9|align=right||align=right|437|align=right|119|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU / UDP|align=right|163,411|align=right|3.05|align=right|0.7|align=right||align=right|30|align=right|6|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF9900 align="center" | |align=left|Social Democratic / People's|align=right|124,472 |align=right|2.32|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|22|align=right|—|-|style="width: 8px" bgcolor=#0093DD align="center" ||align=left|People's / Social Democratic|align=right|42,321 |align=right|0.79|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|13|align=right|—|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#E2062C align="center" | |align=left|People's Democratic Union|align=right|25,552|align=right|0.48|align=right|0.3|align=right||align=right|2|align=right|0|-| |align=right|12,309 |align=right|0.23|align=right|0.0|align=right||align=right|1|align=right|0|-|style="width: 8px" bgcolor=red align="center" ||align=left|PSR / Politics XXI|align=right|11,150|align=right|0.21|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|1|align=right|—|-| |align=right|8,850|align=right|0.16|align=right|0.0|align=right||align=right|1|align=right|1|-| |align=right|6,483|align=right| 0.12|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|8|align=right|—|-| |align=right|6,008|align=right|0.11|align=right| 0.1|align=right| |align=right| 16|align=right| 16|-| |align=right| 4,254|align=right| 0.08|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|5|align=right|—|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#000080 align="center" | |align=left|National Solidarity|align=right|3,940|align=right|0.07|align=right|0.4|align=right||align=right|0|align=right|16|-| |align=right|1 844 |align=right|0.03|align=right|0.4|align=right||align=right|5 |align=right|6|-| |align=right| 1,341|align=right| 0.03|align=right|0.0|align=right||align=right|2|align=right|0.|-| |align=right| 576|align=right| 0.01|align=right|—|align=right||align=right|0|align=right|—|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,140,419|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|95.83|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.5|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|—|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|6,807|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|38|-|colspan=2|Blank ballots|135,738||2.53||0.4||colspan=6 rowspan=4||-|colspan=2|Invalid ballots|87,800||1.64||0.0|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,363,957|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||-|colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout||8,922,182||60.12||3.3|-| 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"|±|-| |1,952,468||36.56||2.0||||13,626||1,314|||||-| |1,615,100||30.24||3.4||||12,960||719|||||-| |661,254||12.38||0.9||||2,731||16|||||-| |287,724||5.39||2.4||||1,840||339|||||-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF9900 align="center" | |align=left|Social Democratic / People's|206,839||3.87||—||||561||—||||—|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" | |align=left|PS / CDU / UDP|169,893||3.18||0.7||||408||119|||||-|style="width: 8px" bgcolor=gray align="center" ||align=left|Independents|152,055||2.85||0.6||||1,594||360|||||-|style="width: 8px" bgcolor=#0093DD align="center" ||align=left|People's / Social Democratic|43,267||0.81||—||||77||—||||—|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#E2062C align="center" | |align=left|People's Democratic Union|16,116||0.30||0.2||||6||4|||||-| |5,501||0.10||0.1||||80||78|||||-| |4,575||0.09||0.0||||2||1|||||-| |3,162||0.06||0.2|||||39||1|||||-| |2 598||0.05||—||||8||—||||—|-|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=#000080 align="center" | |align=left|National Solidarity|2,025||0.04||0.4||||6||10|||||-| |1 549||0.03||0.0||||9||7|||||-| |395||0.01||—||||3||—||||—|-| |394||0.01||—||||3||—||||—|-| |34||0.00||—||||0||—||||—|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,124,949|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|96.05|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.6|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|—|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|33,953|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|495|width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||width="45" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||-|colspan=2|Blank ballots|119,778||2.24||0.4||colspan=6 rowspan=4||-|colspan=2|Invalid ballots|96,014||1.80||0.1|-|colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|5,340,741|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"||-|colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout||8,922,182||59.86||3.3|-| 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 PSD-only lists and lists with other parties.
2. Number of municipalities won between PSD-only lists and lists with other parties. PSD-only lists: 127; PSD-coalition lists: 0.
3. Sum of councillors between PSD-only lists and lists with other parties.
4. Sum of votes between PS-only lists and lists with other parties.
5. Number of municipalities won between PS-only lists and lists with other parties. PS-only lists: 127; PS-coalition lists: 1.
6. Sum of councillors between PS-only lists and lists with other parties.
7. Sum of votes between CDS-only lists and lists with other parties.
8. Sum of councillors between CDS-only lists and lists with other parties.
9. . 2017. As cores políticas que pintam o mapa do poder local de 1976 a 2013 . pt.
10. . 2016. A primeira vez em que os 10 foram notícia . pt.
11. Web site: Instituto Nacional de Estatística (Recenseamentos Gerais da População). www.ine.pt. . pt . 17 July 2021.