This page was first written to cover the 2009 general election. We keep it, with corrected figures, and complete it with the later elections, which have profoundly changed the Portuguese political landscape. How the institutions work is described on the page on the Portuguese political system.
The 2009 election
The general election of 27 September 2009 was won by the Socialists of José Sócrates, who began his second term. The result was significant because it came in the midst of the global economic crisis and a few months after the Socialist Party's defeat in the European elections. The PS nevertheless lost about half a million votes and its absolute majority: its seats fell from 121 to 97 out of 230. Abstention was high, around 40%.
Polls predicted a close race between Sócrates and his rival Manuela Ferreira Leite, a Catholic conservative, but they were proved wrong: the Socialist Party (PS) won 36.6% and the Social Democratic Party (PSD) stopped at 29.1%, though it rose from 75 to 81 seats. The CDS-People's Party was the real surprise and became the third party with 10.4% and 21 seats; Francisco Louçã's Left Bloc rose to 9.8%, doubling its seats from 8 to 16; the CDU, the coalition of Communists and Greens led by Jerónimo de Sousa, won 7.9% and 15 seats.
Sócrates's policies were reformist and moderate on the economy and progressive on civil rights: in 2010 Portugal approved same-sex marriage. A strong supporter of the Lisbon-Madrid high-speed rail link, Sócrates was accused by Ferreira Leite of following Zapatero's Spanish model too closely. Relations with Spain were one of the campaign issues: the centre-right candidate's wariness of Madrid did not convince voters, especially the young, for whom cooperation with their Iberian neighbour had become natural. Without an absolute majority, Sócrates led a minority government, seeking support from other parties case by case.
Crisis and austerity (2011-2015)
The minority government did not last long: in March 2011, when Parliament rejected the fourth austerity package, Sócrates resigned and the country requested an international bailout, as told on the page on the economic crisis. The June 2011 election was won by the PSD of Pedro Passos Coelho, who governed with the CDS-PP, implementing the Troika programme.
The "geringonça" and the Costa years (2015-2024)
In the 2015 election the centre-right coalition came first but lost its majority. For the first time the Socialist leader António Costa formed a government supported in Parliament by the Left Bloc, the Communists and the Greens: an unprecedented arrangement nicknamed the geringonça, the "contraption", which restored income cut during austerity while keeping the books balanced. The PS won again in 2019 and, surprisingly, gained an absolute majority in the snap election of January 2022. In November 2023, however, Costa resigned after his name appeared in a judicial investigation into alleged favouritism; in 2024 he became President of the European Council.
The rise of Chega and the Montenegro governments
The March 2024 election was narrowly won by the Democratic Alliance (PSD and CDS-PP) of Luís Montenegro, who formed a minority government, while the radical-right Chega party, founded by André Ventura in 2019, rose to 50 seats. In March 2025 the government fell on a confidence vote, linked to controversy over a family company of the Prime Minister, and new elections were held on 18 May 2025: the Democratic Alliance won with about 32% and 91 seats, Chega overtook the Socialists for the first time to become the second party with 60 seats, and the PS fell to 58. Montenegro remained at the head of a new minority government. After fifty years of two-party dominance by the PS and PSD, Portuguese politics has become three-way.
Presidential elections
The President of the Republic is elected separately every five years. After the two terms of the Socialist Jorge Sampaio (1996-2006) and the Social Democrat Aníbal Cavaco Silva (2006-2016), Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, a law professor and hugely popular TV commentator, was elected and then re-elected in 2021. In the 2026 presidential election the first round on 18 January sent the former Socialist leader António José Seguro and André Ventura to a run-off; on 8 February Seguro won with about two thirds of the vote, helped by moderate voters from across the spectrum, and took office in March 2026.