Electoral system in Portugal

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The electoral system in Portugal describes the electoral system of the Republic of Portugal . It was created after the Carnation Revolution in 1974 and has been anchored in the Portuguese constitution since 1976.

Responsible for the implementation is Secretaria Geral da Administração Interna ( port. For: "General Secretariat for internal administration"), the Secretariat of State in the Portuguese Interior Ministry ( Ministério da Administração Interna ).

The Comissão Nacional de Eleições (Portuguese for: "National Electoral Commission") controls the independence and legality of the elections in Portugal.

Framework

The Palácio de São Bento , seat of the Portuguese Parliament since 1834, seat of the Assembleia da República since the proclamation of the Republic in 1910

The Parliament of the Portuguese Republic consists of a single chamber, the Assembly of the Republic, which consists of 230 members who are directly elected through general adult elections for a term of no more than four years. The members of the assembly represent the entire country and not the constituencies in which they were elected.

Each of Portugal's eighteen administrative districts, as well as each of the country's two autonomous regions - the Azores and Madeira - is an electoral district. Portuguese voters residing outside the national territory are divided into two constituencies - Europe and the rest of the world - each of which elects two members of the assembly to represent the Portuguese abroad in parliament. The remaining 226 seats are distributed among the constituencies of the respective country according to the proportion of their number of registered voters.

The seats in each constituency are divided according to the largest average proportionality (PR) method designed by the Belgian lawyer Victor D'Hondt in 1899. Although there is no statutory threshold for participation in the allocation of assembly seats, the application of the D'Hondt procedure introduces a de facto threshold at the constituency level.

Political parties and party coalitions can submit lists of candidates. The lists are closed, so voters are not allowed to select individual candidates on this list or change the order.

Government formation

Governments do not need an absolute majority of the assembly to take office, because even if the number of opponents of the government is greater than that of supporters, the number of oppositionists must be equal to or greater than 116 (absolute majority) for both the government's program to be rejected as well as a motion of no confidence can be accepted.

elections

After the end of the semi-fascist Estado Novo dictatorship in 1974 , there were free elections as follows:

Parliamentary elections

Parliamentary elections 2015 , with all circles in the color of the respective winner (blue: PàF , pink: PS , red: CDU , orange: PSD )
Map of all Portuguese constituencies in the color of the respective winner (pink: PS, orange: PSD, red: CDU)

European elections

Portugal joined what is now the European Union in 1986 .

Presidential election

The President of Portugal has been elected since the First Portuguese Republic was proclaimed in 1910.

Results of the presidential elections 2016: all circles in the colors of the winning party (orange: PSD , purple: PS , red: CDU )

Local elections

The first local elections in Portugal (port. Eleições autárquicas ) after the Carnation Revolution of 1974 took place after the territorial reorganization by the Constitution of Portugal in 1976, which reformed the administrative structure of Portugal .

Local elections 2017: all districts in the country in the colors of the respective winning party

See also

Web links

Commons : Elections in Portugal  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files