The 2002 Portuguese legislative election took place on 17 March. The election renewed all 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic.

Quick Facts 230 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 116 seats needed for a majority, Registered ...

2002 Portuguese legislative election

← 1999 17 March 2002 2005 →
230 seats to the Portuguese Assembly 116 seats needed for a majority
Registered	8,902,713 0.4%
Turnout	5,473,655 (61.5%) 0.4 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader José Durão Barroso Ferro Rodrigues Paulo Portas Party PSD PS CDS–PP Leader since 2 May 1999 20 January 2002 22 March 1998 Leader's seat Lisbon[1] Lisbon[2] Aveiro[3] Last election 81 seats, 32.3% 115 seats, 44.1% 15 seats, 8.3% Seats won 105 96 14 Seat change 24 19 1 Popular vote 2,200,765 2,068,584 477,350 Percentage 40.2% 37.8% 8.7% Swing 7.9 pp 6.3 pp 0.4 pp   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Carlos Carvalhas Francisco Louçã Party PCP BE Alliance CDU Leader since 5 December 1992 24 March 1999 Leader's seat Lisbon[4] Lisbon[5] Last election 17 seats, 9.0% 2 seats, 2.4% Seats won 12 3 Seat change 5 1 Popular vote 379,870 153,877 Percentage 6.9% 2.7% Swing 2.0 pp 0.4 pp
Vote winner strength by district Results by constituency
Prime Minister before election António Guterres PS Prime Minister after election José Manuel Barroso PSD

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These elections were called after the resignation of the then incumbent Prime Minister, António Guterres after the defeat of the Socialist Party in the 2001 local elections. That fact, plus the problematic state of the country's finances were the main arguments of the right-wing parties, which led them to be the favourites to win the election.

With just over 40% of the votes cast, the Social Democrats regained the status as the largest political force in Portugal, although the Socialists won almost 38% of the vote. This was the closest legislative election in Portuguese democracy until 2024. This short distance also appears on the electoral map, with each party winning eleven of the 22 districts, while the PS won the most populous, Lisbon and Porto. As a result, the Social Democrats fail to win the absolute majority they had between 1987 and 1995.

As no Party got an absolute majority, the Social Democrats formed a coalition with the right-wing People's Party. The left-wing Democratic Unity Coalition achieved the lowest result ever, finishing in the third place in its traditional strongholds, Évora and Setúbal. The Left Bloc gained one MP. Turnout was slightly higher than it was in 1999 but remained quite low, marking a growing separation between the politics and the Portuguese people, mainly due to the image of the politicians as corrupts and the idea that all the parties are the same.

Voter turnout was slightly higher than in 1999, as 61.5% of the electorate cast a ballot.

After the disappointing results of the Socialist Party (PS) in the 1999 elections, the PS government entered in a series of crisis.^[6] Resignations of ministers from government and incapacity of passing legislation in Parliament led to controversial, and weird, alliances, like the 2000 and 2001 budgets which were approved by a sole CDS – People's Party (CDS–PP) Member of Parliament, Daniel Campelo, in exchange for the government approving a cheese factory in Campelo's hometown, Ponte de Lima.^[7]

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.^[16]

The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude.^[17] 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.^[18]

For these elections, and compared with the 1999 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following:^[19]

More information District, Number of MPs ...

District	Number of MPs	Map
Lisbon(–1)	48	18 6 38 5 4 15 9 4 10 5 10 10 48 3 3 17 3 8 5 5 2 2
Porto(+1)	38
Braga(+1)	18
Setúbal	17
Aveiro	15
Leiria, Santarém and Coimbra	10
Viseu	9
Faro	8
Viana do Castelo	6
Azores, Castelo Branco, Madeira and Vila Real	5
Bragança and Guarda	4
Beja, Évora(–1) and Portalegre	3
Europe and Outside Europe	2

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The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the 8th legislature (1999–2002) and that also partook in the election:

The following table shows the opinion polls of voting intention of the Portuguese voters before the election. Those parties that are listed were represented in parliament (1999-2002). Included is also the result of the Portuguese general elections in 1999 and 2002 for reference.

  Exit poll

More information Date Released, Polling Firm ...

Date Released	Polling Firm	PS					Others	Lead
17 Mar 2002	Leg. election	37.8 96	40.2 105	6.9 12	8.7 14	2.7 3	3.7 0	2.4
17 Mar 2002 (20:00)	RTP1 - Universidade Católica	36.0–41.0	37.0–42.0	5.5–8.0	7.5–10.0	3.0–4.0	—	1.0
17 Mar 2002 (20:00)	SIC - Eurosondagem	35.5–39.3	40.1–43.9	6.2–8.4	6.2–8.4	2.0–3.4	—	4.6
17 Mar 2002 (20:00)	TVI - INTERCAMPUS	35.5–40.5	37.8–42.8	6.8–9.8	5.3–8.3	1.6–4.2	—	2.3
15 Mar 2002	Marktest	35.2	43.7	8.1	6.0	3.7	3.3	8.5
15 Mar 2002	Lusófona	40.9	43.6	5.7	7.1	2.8	—	2.7
15 Mar 2002	Eurosondagem	39.3	41.4	6.9	5.6	3.5	3.3	2.1
15 Mar 2002	Eurequipa	33.9	44.7	7.1	9.1	3.2	2.0	10.8
15 Mar 2002	Universidade Católica	37.5	42.2	6.9	6.8	3.6	3.0	4.7
14 Mar 2002	INTERCAMPUS	39.0	41.0	8.0	5.0	3.0	4.0	2.0
14 Mar 2002	Aximage	40.0	44.0	7.0	6.0	2.0	1.0	4.0
13 Mar 2002	SIC/Visão	36.2	41.0	6.6	5.2	2.0	9.0	4.8
8 Mar 2002	Marktest	36.0	43.0	6.0	7.0	4.0	4.0	7.0
2 Mar 2002	Eurosondagem	35.0	38.0	6.0	5.0	2.0	14.0	3.0
27 Feb 2002	Universidade Católica	35.6	43.5	—	—	—	20.9	7.9
Feb 2002	Marktest	34.7	45.7	6.7	7.3	2.5	3.1	11.0
Jan 2002	Marktest	33.8	41.8	9.6	8.1	2.5	4.2	8.0
22 Dec 2001	Marktest	34.0	39.0	11.0	9.0	3.0	4.0	5.0
16 Dec 2001	Local elections	37.1	41.0	10.6	4.0	1.2	6.1	3.9
Nov 2001	Marktest	35.4	33.7	10.6	11.6	2.9	5.8	1.7
Oct 2001	Marktest	35.9	33.9	10.5	11.5	2.7	5.5	2.0
26 Jan 2001	Marktest	37.0	33.0	10.0	11.0	3.0	6.0	4.0
8 May 2000	Universidade Católica[lower-alpha 2]	40.9	32.5	6.7	8.1	3.0	8.8	8.4
10 Oct 1999	Leg. election	44.1 115	32.3 81	9.0 17	8.3 15	2.4 2	3.9 0	11.9

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After the elections, PSD and CDS–PP formed a coalition government, the first since the Democratic Alliance (AD) in the early 1980's.^[28] This government was marked by the fragile fiscal and economic situation of the country and the 2003 Casa Pia child sexual abuse scandal. During this government, Portugal became a major ally in the War in Iraq, which divided public opinion.^[29] In the 2004 European Parliament election in Portugal, the PSD/CDS–PP coalition Força Portugal suffered a big defeat by gathering just 33% of the votes, against the 44% of the Socialist Party. A few days later, José Manuel Durão Barroso announced he was resigning from the post of Prime Minister in order to become President of the European Commission.^[30] Despite pleas for a snap legislative election from Opposition parties, President Jorge Sampaio decided to nominate the new PSD leader, Pedro Santana Lopes as Prime Minister.^[31]

• Freire, André (November 2004). "Issue Voting in Portugal: The 2002 Legislative Elections". West European Politics. 27 (5): 779–800. doi:10.1080/0140238042000283328. S2CID 154614163.