By Paulo Trigo Pereira, Professor of Economics, University of Lisbon (ISEG) and President of Institute of Public Policy

Portugal is often seen as a stable democracy. Since the peaceful Carnation Revolution of 1974, the country has consolidated democratic institutions, joined the European Union, and experienced decades of political stability.

Nearly fifty years after the transition to democracy, Portugal’s electoral system for its national parliament (the Assembleia da República) has changed very little. What once helped ensure proportional representation now shows clear signs of strain. This is the starting point of the civic initiative “Reforming the Electoral System: Renewing Democracy”, launched by the Lisbon-based think tank Institute of Public Policy (IPP). The project argues that democratic renewal in Portugal requires revisiting and reforming how representatives are elected.

A System That Limits Voter Choice

Portugal uses Party List Proportional Representation with closed party lists. Voters choose between parties, but they cannot express any preference for individual candidates. Party leaderships determine both who appears on electoral lists and the order in which candidates are elected.

In comparative perspective, this is increasingly unusual. Portugal is one of only a handful of European Union countries where voters cannot influence the selection of candidates at all in legislative elections. In most proportional systems, voters can either choose between candidates directly, rank candidates within party lists, or cast separate votes for parties and individual representatives.

The consequence is a weak accountability link between voters and elected representatives. Members of parliament depend primarily on party leadership for their political careers, rather than on citizens. Over time, this institutional feature contributes to political disengagement and a perception that elections offer limited real choice.

Territorial Inequality, Discrimination and Political Fragmentation

A second major issue concerns territorial representation. Electoral districts in mainland Portugal coincide with the eighteen administrative districts whose populations differ sharply. This produces large differences in district magnitude – the number of seats allocated per district.

In smaller, less populated districts, particularly in the interior of the country, voters face a structural disadvantage. Only a small number of seats are available (e.g Portalegre with just two), which effectively restricts competition to the largest parties. Voters who support smaller parties often know in advance that their vote is unlikely to translate into representation. As a result, many feel pressured to cast a “useful vote” or abstain altogether.

The opposite happens in large urban districts such as Lisbon (48 MPs) or Porto (40 MPs), where many seats are allocated and proportionality is dramatically higher. Such larger districts promote excessive political fragmentation since in these districts political representation can be achieved with a very low percentage of votes. Effective electoral thresholds are extremely low in these districts. The outcome is unequal representation based solely on geography – an issue with significant implications for political inclusion, territorial cohesion and parliamentary fragmentation.

A Civic and Participatory Approach to Reform

What distinguishes the IPP initiative is not only its diagnosis, but also its approach. The project is explicitly non-partisan and citizen-led. Rather than advocating a single technical solution from the outset, it frames electoral reform as a democratic process that must combine public deliberation, academic expertise, and institutional feasibility.

The project began with the public launch of a Manifesto for Electoral Reform, and a crowdfunding campaign, reflecting its independence from political parties and public funding. Its premise is that meaningful reform must be grounded in civic legitimacy, not elite negotiation alone.

Over the course of a year, the project promotes public consultation through focus groups and seminars held across the country, with particular attention to regions disadvantaged by the current system. These discussions aim to incorporate citizens’ perspectives and experiences into the reform debate.

At the same time, the project invests in electoral literacy. A dedicated website (in Portuguese here) provides accessible explanations of electoral systems, comparative research, and frequently asked questions. This reflects a key assumption: informed citizens are essential to meaningful institutional reform.

From Debate to Institutional Change

The initiative is not limited to discussion. Its explicit goal is to launch a Citizens’ Legislative Initiative in parliament, backed by twenty thousand signatures. This mechanism allows citizens to formally place legislative proposals on the parliamentary agenda.

In doing so, the project seeks to strengthen democratic participation not only through the content of reform, but through the process itself. Electoral reform becomes both a means and an end of democratic renewal.

The Portuguese case illustrates a broader challenge facing many established democracies: how to redesign political institutions created decades ago to societies that are more educated, more connected, and more demanding of political accountability.

Find out more about the work of Lisbon’s Institute of Public Policy.

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Most political parties go for a simple, descriptive name that, as best as possible, indicates their ideology, platform or who they seek to represent. In other words, they do exactly what it says on the tin. But there are some parties you come across where there is a total disconnect between the name and the party. Names that are so counter-intuitive or perplexing that you can only wonder why they haven’t changed it. Here are a few.

Social Democratic Party, Portugal

If you saw the results of 2019 Portuguese election where the Socialist Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Left Bloc and the Communist Party took 94% of seats between them, you could be forgiven for thinking that Portugal is the most left-wing democracy ever. The catch, though, is that the Social Democratic Party (PSD) are not actually social democrats, rather they are a somewhat standard centre-right party that are usually classed as ‘liberal conservatives’.

As with many oddly named parties, there is some historical truth to their name. The PSD were founded as a social democratic party in the aftermath of the fall of Portugal’s far-right dictatorship in the early 1970s, but quickly crossed the political divide and were in alliance with the conservative CSD by the end of the decade.

Venstre, Denmark/Norway

Venstre, which in Danish and Norwegian translates as ‘Left’, might not seem like a bad name for a political party – Germany and Luxembourg both have parties simply called The Left. The problem, though, is that both Venstres are not left-wing. They are both centre-right liberal parties that are fairly pro-free market. In fact, Denmark’s Venstre has been the country’s main right-of-centre party for over 25 years.

While both parties may have been the left-wing option when they were founded in the 19^th century, it must be more than a little odd today opposing the left from the Left. Doubly so in Denmark where they also have the social liberal Radikale Venstre (Radical Left), the least left-wing party in the left bloc.

Social Liberal Party, Brazil

The far-right President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, is known for many things, though something that might be a surprise is that he was elected as the candidate of the Social Liberal Party. But this isn’t so much a party that drifted from its original beliefs, rather than one that was hijacked.

The party may have been a bit more economically right-wing than is normal for social liberals, but it was largely a true liberal party until Bolsonaro joined in 2018. Most of its original membership quickly quit, something which Bolsonaro later did himself. The remaining far-right party is now attempting a merger with other right-wing parties.

Centre Party, Sweden

The Nordic Agrarian parties were initially established to represent the interests of farmers in parliament, but they have now since rebranded as Centre parties with a slightly broader appeal. Norway and Finland’s Centre parties are today genuinely fairly centrist, but Sweden’s is a bit different. It is a resolutely right-wing liberal party that is more economically and socially liberal than the Liberals themselves – with Centre hoping to capitalise on the recent shift of the Liberals in favour of co-operating with the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats. Despite not being ideologically centrist, the party is, however, rather aptly situated in the middle of the two blocs after last year’s government crisis.

Labour and People’s National Parties, Jamaica

As names for political parties go, National and Labour have to be some of the most common – searching Wikipedia for them will lead to disambiguation pages that are basically a list of UN member states. But wherever you find one of these parties, it is usually the case that Labour is on the left and National is on the right. Not in Jamaica.

There, the governing Labour Party is a right-wing conservative party, though one with admittedly strong links to some of Jamaica’s trade unions. It is instead the People’s National Party that is the social-democratic one.

Social Democratic Liberal Party, Fiji

How much would you be willing to bet that the Social Democratic Liberal Party of Fiji is a progressive, centre-left party? It sure sounds like it should be (if you haven’t read the rest of this blog!). But it’s actually an ethno-nationalist party that seeks to represent the interests of the largely Christian native Fijian majority over that of the largely Hindu Indo-Fijian minority. The party is also strongly connected to the perpetrators of the 2000 coup and seeks to reverse many of the democratic, multi-racial reforms implemented since the 2006 countercoup and 2014 restoration of democracy.

 

While it is easy to quickly glance at election results from around the world and come to a conclusion, it’s always worth having a closer look. Every country has a slightly different political system, history and culture – you can’t just assume that things work the same way halfway around the world.

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The UK isn’t the only country to hold snap elections. Portugal is holding a snap election at the end of the month (30 January 2022) after parliament rejected the budget proposed by António Costa’s government last autumn. Before Portuguese voters go to the polls, we thought we’d take a look at the system they’ll be using to choose their next parliament and the parties and possible governments they’ll be choosing from.

Voting System

Portugal’s Assembly of the Republic is made-up of 230 MPs, all elected by Party List PR. The Portuguese variant of List PR is probably the most similar to the version that was previously used to elect British MEPs between 1999 and 2019 – using closed lists, the D’Hondt method, fairly small constituencies and no electoral thresholds.

226 of the 230 MPs are elected in geographic constituencies that correspond to the eighteen districts of Portugal and the autonomous regions of Azores and Madeira. The range in size of these constituencies is quite large – the smallest (Portalegre) elects 2 MPs and the largest (Lisbon) has 48. But most districts are relatively small, with the median constituency returning 7 MPs.

The remaining 4 seats are chosen by Portuguese citizens living abroad – with two representing those living in the rest of Europe and the other two representing those ‘outside’ Europe.

Although Portugal uses a constituency system, Portuguese MPs are constitutionally obliged to represent the interests of the whole country rather than merely their constituents. But the small size of most of the constituencies, paired with the D’Hondt method, means that there is an overall bias towards the larger parties, with smaller parties having to focus on the larger, city constituencies if they want to win seats.

Parties and Government

Since democratisation in the 1970s, Portuguese politics has been home to a moderately multi-party system with two dominant parties. These are your standard centre-left Socialist Party (PS) and the confusingly named Social Democratic Party (PSD), who were founded as social democrats, but have long been liberal conservatives and sit with the centre-right EPP in Europe. These two parties have held between 75 and 90 percent of seats between them over the past 30 years.

The other long-standing, smaller presences in the Assembly are the conservative CDS-People’s Party, the communist-dominated United Democratic Coalition (CDU) and the populist Left Bloc (BE). They have been joined in the recent years by the environmentalist People-Animals-Nature (PAN), libertarian Liberal Initiative (IL) and the far-right Chega (Enough!) – all took just one MP last time but are expecting gains this time.

Like France, Portugal uses a semi-presidential system with a strong, directly elected President alongside its Prime Minister and their cabinet. Although the President formally appoints the Prime Minister, the PM does have to maintain the confidence of the Assembly and is usually appointed in a similar manner to PMs in other countries. In fact, Portugal is currently undergoing a period of ‘cohabitation’ – the President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, is from the PSD, while the Prime Minister, António Costa, is from the opposing Socialist Party. This isn’t too much of an issue in Portugal, with the President’s executive powers largely being restricted to foreign and defence policy.

Competition for government in Portugal follows a two-bloc system, similar to that seen in Scandinavia. Recent governments have been either centre-right coalitions between the PSD and the People’s Party or single-party Socialist governments – either with their own majority or as a minority with support from left-wing parties in the Assembly.

What will happen this time is not entirely clear – polls predict a close and tightening race, though one with the Socialists and wider left bloc currently slightly ahead. But how any result translates into governments will be interesting. Incumbent Costa is clearly the more popular choice for Prime Minister, but another Socialist government will likely require the support of the same left-wing parties who caused this election by withdrawing support for his cabinet’s budget.

But a PSD victory would almost certainly require a new governing formula. Their historic coalition partners – the People’s Party – are likely heading towards their worst ever result. Instead, if the right bloc ends up ahead, the PSD will have to turn to the new right-wing parties – Liberal Initiative or even Chega. Both parties are set for gains in this election, but whether those gains are enough to kick Costa out and put themselves in a position of power is yet to be seen.

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