By what margin did António de Oliveira Salazar win the election for Prime Minister?
Os Grandes Portugueses
Prime minister António de Oliveira Salazar, whose programme was presented by Jaime Nogueira Pinto, polled the most (41%); his lifelong communist political opponent Álvaro Cunhal was second (19%), and the diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes third (13%).
Socialist Party (Portugal)
In the 2015 legislative elections, the PS polled a disappointing second place, capturing just 32% of the votes against the 38.6% of the PSD/CDS-PP coalition called Portugal Ahead. Despite the victory of the PSD/CDS-PP coalition, the centre-left and left-wing parties achieved a clear majority in Parliament. After the second Passos Coelho cabinet fell in Parliament, with the approval of a no-confidence motion, the PS forged an agreement with BE and CDU to support a PS minority government. For the first time in Portuguese democracy, the leader of the second most voted political force became Prime Minister.
António de Oliveira Salazar
Pinto and Rezola argue that a key strategy Salazar used to stabilise his regime was to come to terms with the Catholic Church through the Concordat. Anti-clericalism would be discouraged and the Church would have an honored and central position in Portuguese life. The Church agreed to stay out of politics, but it did operate numerous social groups for adults and youth. The Church role became a major pillar of the New State's "limited pluralism."
Despite this landmark agreement, Church-state relations and inter-Church relations in Portugal were not without some tensions through the 1940s. Some prominent oppositionist priests, such as Abel Varzim and Joaquim Alves Correia, openly supported the MUD in 1945 and the granting of more social rights to the workers. Abel Varzim, who had been a supporter of the regime, attacked Salazar and his claims of the Catholicism of the corporatist state, arguing that the regime was not true to Catholic social teaching as the people suffered in poverty. Varzim's newspaper, "O Trabalhador" ("The Worker"), was closed in 1948. In his personal diary he wrote: "o estado-salazar é quem manda na igreja" ("In Portugal the Salazar-State rules the church"). Joaquim Alves Correia was forced into exile in the United States, where he died in 1951. The opposition candidate in the 1958 presidential election, Humberto Delgado, a Roman Catholic and a dissident of the regime, quoted Pope Pius XII to show how the social policies of the regime were against the social teachings of the Church. That same year, in July 1958, Salazar suffered a severe blow from the bishop of Porto, Dom António Ferreira Gomes, who wrote a critical letter to the Council President criticizing the restrictions on human rights and denouncing the harshness of Portugal's poverty. It was time, he said, for the Church to come out of the catacombs and speak its mind. Salazar was furious. The bishop was not formally exiled, but he decided to leave the country, and it appears that Lisbon made it clear to Rome that the bishop's presence in Portugal would not be appropriate.
2021 Portuguese presidential election
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was elected in January 2016 with 52% of the votes on the first round. He took the oath of office on March 9th, 2016 and since then, has been in a Cohabitation with Socialist Prime Minister António Costa, who has the support of the Left Bloc, the Communist Party and the Greens.
António Guterres
Cavaco Silva did not seek a fourth term as prime minister of Portugal (in order to run for the 1996 Presidential election) and the Socialist Party won the 1995 parliamentary election. President Soares appointed Guterres as prime minister and his Cabinet took the oath of office on 28 October that year.
1983 Portuguese legislative election
The election was won by the Socialist Party with 36%, and Mário Soares was nominated Prime Minister. However, the Socialists lacked a majority in the Assembly of the Republic and were forced to form a coalition with the Social Democrats, in what was called the "Central Block". Although this coalition allowed Soares to govern, several members of both parties were against it, and internal attacks led to the collapse of the coalition after less than two years. In the election that followed, the Communist-dominated United People Alliance lost 3 MPs and the Democratic and Social Center, after the dissolution of the Democratic Alliance, was now alone in the Parliament with 30 MPs, a loss of 16. The election marked the beginning of a process of bi-polarization of Portuguese politics.
António de Oliveira Salazar
In November 1965, "Time" magazine said of Salazar: "Every four years, Premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar preserves Portugal's image as a democracy by blowing the dust off a few selected "opposition" leaders and relaxing police controls just enough for a few weeks to permit them to run for Portugal's 130-seat National Assembly. There are a few cracks in the facade. The assembly functions only as a rubber stamp. The opposition candidates are usually feeble old men left over from a regime that was discredited and overthrown four decades ago, and Salazar decides what they can and cannot talk about..."
Party for Social Renewal
The 2004 parliamentary elections were won by the PAIGC, which won 45 of the 100 seats; the PRS emerged as the second strongest party in the National People's Assembly with 35 seats. The PRS agreed to support PAIGC in parliament in return for a number of important positions, although it did not get any ministers in the government. Ialá was released from house arrest shortly before the elections, and in March 2005 he was nominated by the PRS as its candidate in the presidential elections that year. However, he finished in third place in the first round, failing to qualify for the run-off, contested by Sanhá and Vieira. Ialá and the PRS protested against the outcome of the first round, claiming to have actually received the most votes, but Ialá later accepted the outcome, while still claiming to have received the most votes, and endorsed Vieira for the second round. After Vieira's assumption of office on 1 October 2005, a crisis within the PAIGC led to several splits that resulted in the PRS becoming the largest party in parliament.
National Liberation Party (Costa Rica)
The party, as then main opposition to Luis Guillermo Solís's government, went into a very divisive primary in which then deputy Antonio Álvarez Desanti won over former president José María Figueres. Internal fighting made impossible to reach an agreement among the factions leading to Figueres withdrawing his support of Desanti's nomination. Desanti -who had previously left the party whilst criticizing it for corruption and abandoning the social-democratic ideology- had however the support of Oscar Arias and his brother Rodrigo. Nevertheless its results in the Costa Rican general election, 2018 were crushing, as the party suffered its worst defeat in history with only 18% of votes and failing to gain a spot in the run-off ending as third for the first time in its history.
António Sérgio
He was a permanent political opponent of the regime of António de Oliveira Salazar, which lasted from 1926 to 1974. He was also linked to the foundation of the Portuguese Socialist Party and to the Humberto Delgado candidacy of the Presidential Elections of 1958. (Humberto Delgado was later murdered by the PIDE, political police of "Salazarism"). Sérgio was arrested in 1910, 1933, 1935, 1948 and 1958. And about this he thought (and wrote) that it was in prison he found the true "national unity" - to oppose the military dictatorship, first, and then Salazar.
2016 Croatian parliamentary election
Following the announcement of election results late on 11 September 2016 it was thought that there could be a repeat of the long-lasting and somewhat tumultuous talks that followed the previous election. Namely, as yet again no party or coalition had gained an absolute majority of 76 seats, coalition talks would be required between the two larger parties (HDZ and the People's Coalition) and the numerous smaller parties to form such a majority. However, the opposition SDP-led People's Coalition conceded defeat after winning only 54 seats in Parliament. Its leader, former Prime Minister Zoran Milanović, ruled out running for reelection to his party's chairmanship, effectively also ruling out any possible attempts to form a governing majority, thus allowing the HDZ to begin talks with the Bridge of Independent Lists (Most), its junior partner in the outgoing government led by the non-partisan Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković. Most set out seven conditions for entering into a government with any party and Plenković began discussions lasting several weeks with Most representatives. Plenković also held talks with the 8 representatives of national minorities, as HDZ and Most would not have a majority without their support. Over the next few weeks several other parties, including the HSS proceeded to give their support to a government led by Plenković. However, it is widely viewed that HSS chairman Krešo Beljak agreed to give Plenković the support of his party's 5 MPs and "100 days of peace before turning into the sharpest opposition" in order to calm tensions resulting from a dispute between him and HSS MEP Marijana Petir, who had called for HSS to enter the center-right government to be formed by HDZ and Most instead of remaining a part of the People's Coalition as an opposition party. The dispute escalated and Beljak proceeded to suspend over 100 members of the party, including Petir. Plenković further received the support of the Milan Bandić 365 party, one out of two HSU MPs and one former member of Human Blockade. He formally received 91 signatures of support from MPs on 10 October 2016, far more than the necessary 76, and presented them to President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who named him Prime Minister-designate and gave him 30 days time until 9 November to form a government. On 14 October Parliament constituted its 9th Assembly since 1990 by electing Most leader Božo Petrov as the 11th Speaker of Parliament. On 19 October Andrej Plenković was confirmed as the 12th Prime Minister of Croatia along with his cabinet of 20 ministers by a vote of 91 in favor, 45 against and 3 abstentions among 151 Members of Parliament. His government received the support of MPs belonging to the HDZ-HSLS-HDS coalition, Bridge of Independent Lists, Milan Bandić 365, HSS, HDSSB, SDSS and 5 representatives of other national minorities.
António Guterres
His election represented a break with tradition for the Socialists: not only was Guterres not associated with either the faction around then-President and former Prime Minister Mário Soares or the party's left wing led by Guterres' predecessor Sampaio, but he was also a devout Catholic, running counter to the party's historical secularism. He sought to consult with Portugal's civil society in formulating policy, meeting a range of intellectuals, scientists and entrepreneurs from across the country and the political spectrum in the run-up to the next general election.
List of Presidents of Brazil
Tancredo Neves, who had been Prime Minister during the presidency of João Goulart, was chosen to be the candidate of PMDB, the major opposition party (and the successor of the MDB Party, that had opposed the Military Regime since its inception), but Tancredo was also supported by a large political spectrum, even including a significant part of former members of ARENA, the party that supported the military presidents. In the last months of the military regime, a large section of ARENA members defected from the Party, and now professed to be men of democratic inclinations. They formed the Liberal Front, and the Liberal Front Party allied itself to PMDB, forming a coalition known as the Democratic Alliance. PMDB needed the Liberal Front's support in order to secure victory in the Electoral College. In the formation of this broad coalition former members of ARENA also switched parties and joined PMDB. So, to seal this arrangement, the spot of vice-president in Tancredo Neves' ticket was given to José Sarney, who represented the former supporters of the regime that had now joined the Democratic Alliance. On the other hand, those who remained loyal to the military regime and its legacy renamed ARENA as the PDS. In the PDS's National Convention, two right-wing supporters of the military administrations fought for the Party's nomination: Colonel Mário Andreazza, then Minister of the Interior in General Figueiredo's administration, was the preferred candidate of the incumbent President and of the military elite, but he was defeated by Paulo Maluf, a civilian and former Governor of São Paulo State during the military regime. Tancredo's coalition defeated Maluf, and his election was hailed as the dawn of a "New Republic". Andreazza's defeat (by 493 votes to 350) and the selection of Maluf as the PDS's presidential candidate greatly contributed to the split in the Party that led to the formation of the Liberal Front. The Liberal Front refused to support Maluf and joined forces with the PMDB in supporting Tancredo Neves, thus forging the Democratic Alliance. Without that split in the PDS, the election of the opposition candidate would not have been possible.
2001 Andorran parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Andorra on 4 March 2001.
The result was a victory for the Liberal Party of Andorra, which won 15 of the 28 seats. Its leader, Marc Forné Molné, remained Prime Minister. Voter turnout was 81.6%.
Aníbal Cavaco Silva
Tax cuts and economic deregulation and the arrival of EU funds spurred several years of uninterrupted economic growth, which increased Cavaco Silva's popularity. He was hampered, however, by heading a minority government. On most issues, his Social Democrats could rely on the 22 votes of the Social and Democratic Center Party (CDS), but the two parties' combined 110 votes fell 16 short of a parliamentary majority. The Socialists and Communists held 57 and 38 seats respectively; Cavaco Silva could govern if the 45 members of the PRD, who held the balance of power, abstained, as they frequently did. In 1987, however, the PRD withdrew its tacit support, and a parliamentary vote of no confidence forced President Mário Soares to call an early election. The results of the election stunned even the most optimistic of Cavaco Silva's supporters. His Social Democrat party captured 50.2 percent of the popular vote and 148 of the 250 seats in the legislature. Far behind were the Socialists, with only 60 seats, and the Communists, with 31. The CDS and the PRD were virtually wiped out, left with only four and seven seats, respectively. This was the first time since the 1974 revolution that a single party had won an outright majority in the national parliament.
1989 Andorran parliamentary election
Voter turnout was 82.3%. A second round of voting was held in Andorra la Vella, Canillo and Ordino.
Relation of the elected candidates with the standing government:
Although continuist and government endorsed candidates won the elections in terms of seats, in the most populated parishes (Andorra la Vella and Escaldes-Engordany), the opposition candidates received more votes. This was seen as a decrease of support of Pintat's policies and Òscar Ribas Reig was elected Prime Minister of Andorra.
António de Oliveira Salazar
The new constitution introduced by Salazar established an anti-parliamentarian and authoritarian government that would last until 1974. The president was to be elected by popular vote for a period of seven years. On paper, the new document vested sweeping, almost dictatorial powers in the hands of the president, including the power to appoint and dismiss the prime minister. The president was elevated to a position of preeminence as the "balance wheel", the defender and ultimate arbiter of national politics. President Carmona, however, had allowed Salazar more or less a free hand since appointing him prime minister and continued to do so; Carmona and his successors would largely be figureheads as he wielded the true power. Wiarda argues that Salazar achieved his position of power not just because of constitutional stipulations, but also because of his character: domineering, absolutist, ambitious, hardworking and intellectually brilliant.
António de Oliveira Salazar
In 1968, Salazar suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Most sources maintain that it occurred when he fell from a chair in his summer house. In February 2009 though, there were anonymous witnesses who admitted, after some investigation into Salazar's best-kept secrets, that he had fallen in a bath instead of from a chair. As he was expected to die shortly after his fall, President Américo Tomás replaced him with Marcelo Caetano. Despite the injury, Salazar lived for a further two years. When he unexpectedly recovered lucidity, his intimates did not tell him he had been removed from power, instead allowing him to "rule" in privacy until his death in July 1970.
Party for Social Renewal
The PRS's time in power was characterized by a poor economic situation and political instability. Ialá, alleged by critics to be erratic and to have autocratic tendencies, dissolved parliament in November 2002, but early elections intended to be held in February 2003 were delayed several times, until Ialá was ousted in a coup led by Veríssimo Correia Seabra on 14 September 2003. Seabra's military government chose the PRS's general secretary Artur Sanhá to become Prime Minister of a transitional government, with Henrique Rosa as President; they were sworn in on 28 September. Sanhá took office despite the opposition of 15 of the 17 involved political parties, which said that the Prime Minister should be an independent.
Marcelo Caetano
Many people hoped that the new 102nd prime minister would soften the edges of Salazar's authoritarian regime and modernize the economy. Caetano moved on to foster economic growth and some social improvements, such as the awarding of a monthly pension to rural workers who had never had the chance to pay social security. The objectives of Caetano's pension reform were threefold: enhancing equity, reducing fiscal and actuarial imbalance, and achieving more efficiency for the economy as a whole, for example, by establishing contributions less distortive to labour markets or by allowing the savings generated by pension funds to increase the investments in the economy. Some large scale investments were made at national level, such as the building of a major oil processing centre in Sines. The economy reacted very well at first, but into the 1970s some serious problems began to show, due in part to two-digit inflation (from 1970 and on) and to the short-term effects of the 1973 oil crisis (despite the largely unexploited oil reserves that Portugal had in its overseas territories of Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe that by 1973 were being developed at a fast pace, and were promising sources of wealth in the medium- to long-term).
Social Democratic Party (Portugal)
The PSD-supported candidate Aníbal Cavaco Silva won the Portuguese presidential elections in 2006 and again in 2011. After the 2005 elections, Luís Marques Mendes was elected leader of the party. Internal infighting weakened Marques Mendes and, in September 2007, Marques Mendes was defeated by Luís Filipe Menezes by a 54% to 42% margin. Menezes was also incapable with dealing with his internal opposition and, after just six months in the job, Menezes resigned. On 31 May 2008, Manuela Ferreira Leite became the first female leader of a Portuguese major party. She won 38% of the votes, against the 31% of Pedro Passos Coelho and the 30% of Pedro Santana Lopes.
History of Honduras (1982–present)
Jose Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales of the Liberal Party won the November 27, 2005 presidential election with less than a 4% margin of victory, the smallest margin ever in Honduran electoral history. Zelaya's campaign theme was "citizen power", and he vowed to increase government transparency and combat narcotrafficking, while maintaining macroeconomic stability. The Liberal Party won 62 of the 128 congressional seats, just short of an absolute majority.
2016 Portuguese presidential election
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the candidate supported by PPD/PSD, CDS-PP and PPM, won the election on the first round with 52% of the vote. Marcelo also won in every single district in the country and only lost a few municipalities in the south of the country. Turnout was higher than that of the 2011 election, but reached a record low in a presidential election with no incumbents as only 48.66% of the electorate cast a ballot.
Antônio Britto
He even won the first round of elections by a small margin. But in the second round against his opponent again in 1994, Olivio Dutra (PT), he was defeated by a margin of 87,366 votes. In the election, there was decisive support of the PDT (the opposite of privatization) to the PT candidate.
Sandinista National Liberation Front
Won, getting the 67.20% of the valid votes cast 735.067 votes equivalent to well above the second party of the Democratic Conservative Party (PCD ) who won 154,127 corresponding to 14.00% of the valid votes.
Lost, as 579,886 A total valid votes equivalent to 40.82%, below that obtained by the main opposition Mrs. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro candidate of the National Opposition Union (UNO) who won 777,552 to obtain valid votes equivalent to 54.74%.
Lost, as 669,443 A total valid votes equivalent to 37.75%, below that obtained by his main opponent on Arnoldo Alemán Lacayo candidate of the Liberal Alliance (AL) who won 904,908 to obtain valid votes equivalent to 51.03%.
Lost, as 915,417 A total valid votes equivalent to 42.30%, below that obtained by the main opposition Enrique Bolaños Geyer candidate Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) who won by getting 1,216,863 valid votes equivalent to 56.30%.
Won, getting the 37.99% of the valid votes cast, 930,802 votes equivalent to relatively higher than the two main opposition parties. They were the party of the Second Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN) with the degree candidate Eduardo Montealegre Rivas who won 693,391 votes recorded corresponding to a 28.30% and third place went to the Constitutionalist Liberal Party with Dr. José Rizo Castellón who earned a total 664,225 of valid votes corresponding to 27.11%.
Won in National Elections held on November 6, 2011, was the amount of 1,569,287 for 62.46% of the total valid votes, at that moment Commander Daniel Ortega Saavedra became the presidential candidate who won a presidential election with the most votes in the history of Nicaragua, in addition to that obtained a lead of more than 30% of valid votes doubling the number of votes obtained by radial businessman Fabio Gadea Mantilla on behalf of the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) who obtained the amount of 778,889 votes recorded for 31.00%. The big loser of these elections was the former President Arnoldo Alemán Lacayo candidate Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) who was located in a distant third with a 5.91% equivalent to 148,507 votes. These results hint at a continuing and still fluid change in the correlation of political forces in the country.
Won in National Elections held on November 6, 2016, was the amount of 1,806,651 for 72.44% of the total valid votes. In the 2016 Presidential Elections, Commander Daniel Ortega Saavedra accompanied by Rosario Murillo Zambrana became the Presidential Formula that obtained the most votes in a Presidential Election in the history of Nicaragua, obtaining an advantage of more than 57% on the formula of Secondly, demonstrating that the application of the Christian, Socialist and Solidarity Model of the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity implemented by the Sandinista National Liberation Front has the support of the immense majority of Nicaraguans.
Fernando Nogueira
Fernando Nogueira was first elected for the Assembly of the Republic in 1985. Before that he was Secretary of State for Regional Development in the Central Bloc government led by Mário Soares. After the Social Democratic Party victory in 1985, Aníbal Cavaco Silva became Prime Minister, and Nogueira was nominated Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, initiating a career as top government minister that would span for a decade.
2011 São Toméan presidential election
The first round was contested by approximately 120 candidates. The candidate from President de Menezes' party, Force for Change Democratic Movement–Liberal Party (, MDFM–PL), was Delfim Neves, who jointly represented the MDFM–PL and his own Democratic Convergence Party (, PCD–GR). Pinto da Costa, who ran independently, won the most votes but failed to receive the majority required to claim an outright victory. Carvalho, of the ruling party Independent Democratic Action (, ADI), a former prime minister and the incumbent Speaker of the National Assembly, placed second. A run-off to be contested between Pinto da Costa and Carvalho was announced on the same day. Pinto da Costa received the backing of the majority of eliminated candidates, and he was expected to win comfortably.
1965 Portuguese presidential election
Presidential elections were held in Portugal on 25 July 1965, during the Estado Novo regime of Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar, following parliamentary elections in the same year. It was the first presidential election to be held by the National Assembly of Portugal rather than by direct popular ballot and, subsequently, rear admiral Thomaz was universally endorsed for a second seven-year term. His only opponent in the preceding 1958 election, general Humberto Delgado, had been assassinated in early 1965 following an attempt to return to Portugal from exile, possibly to contest Thomaz' election for a second time.
Fernando Haddad
Haddad came in second place in the first round of the election with 29% of the vote, behind Jair Bolsonaro, who had 46%. The two faced again in the run-off on 28 October 2018, in which Haddad placed second with 44.87% of the vote against Bolsonaro, who won the election.
Manuel Pinto da Costa
In the July 2011 presidential election, he ran as an independent. He won the most votes in the first round but failed to receive the required majority. In a run-off round on 7 August, he defeated rival Evaristo Carvalho from the ruling party Independent Democratic Action (, ADI), taking 53% of the votes. During the campaign, he focused on the need for political stability and promised to tackle widespread corruption. His bid was given the backing of most of the other major candidates, including former Prime Minister Maria das Neves, who claimed "Pinto da Costa's plan could bring more hope to our country". Some analysts, however, raised concerns that the former president's victory might trigger a return to the authoritarian rule seen during his previous period in power. He took office on 3 September 2011.
António de Oliveira Salazar
In the 1960s, armed revolutionary movements and scattered guerrilla activity reached Mozambique, Angola, and Portuguese Guinea. Except in Portuguese Guinea, the Portuguese army and naval forces were able to suppress most of these insurgencies effectively through a well-planned counter-insurgency campaign using light infantry, militia, and special operations forces. However, despite the early military successes, Colonel Francisco da Costa Gomes quickly pointed out that there could be no permanent military solution for Portugal's colonial problem. In 1961, General Júlio Botelho Moniz, after being nominated Minister of Defense, tried to convince President Américo Tomás in a constitutional "coup d'état" to remove an aged Salazar from the premiership. Botelho Moniz ended up being removed from his government position. His political ally Francisco da Costa Gomes was nonetheless allowed to publish a letter in the newspaper "Diario Popular" reiterating his view that a military solution in Africa was unlikely.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
On 24 January 2016, Rebelo de Sousa was elected as President of Portugal in the first round of voting. He stood as an independent, appealing for moderation and cross-party consensus. During his election campaign, he promised to repair political divisions and the hardship of Portugal's 2011–14 bailout. Unlike his predecessor, Anibal Cavaco Silva, he had never previously held a top state position.
Economic history of Portugal
The First Republic was ended by a military coup in May 1926, but the newly installed government failed to fix the nation's precarious financial situation. Instead, President Óscar Fragoso Carmona invited António de Oliveira Salazar to head the Ministry of Finance, and the latter agreed to accept the position provided he would have veto power over all fiscal expenditures. At the time of his appointment in 1928, Salazar held the Chair of Economics at the Law School of the University of Coimbra and was considered by his peers to be Portugal's most distinguished authority on inflation. For forty years, first as minister of finance (1928–32) and then as prime minister (1932–68), Salazar's political and economic doctrines shaped the progress of the country.
António de Oliveira Salazar
In 1921, Salazar was persuaded to stand as a candidate for election to parliament, though he did so reluctantly. He appeared once in the chamber and never returned, struck by the disorder he witnessed and a feeling of futility. Salazar was convinced that liberal individualism had led to fragmentation of society and a perversion of the democratic process.
After the "coup d'état" of 28 May 1926, Salazar briefly joined the government of José Mendes Cabeçadas as Minister of Finance. On 11 June, a small group of officers drove from Lisbon to Santa Comba Dão to persuade him to be Minister of Finance. Salazar spent five days in Lisbon. The conditions he proposed to control spending were refused, he quickly resigned, and in two hours he was on a train back to Coimbra University, explaining that because of the frequent disputes and general disorder in the government, he could not do his work properly.
José Sócrates
In opposition, José Sócrates was elected leader of the Socialist Party in 2004 and led the party to its first absolute majority in the 2005 election. By then, Portugal was living an economic crisis, marked by stagnation and a difficult state of public finances. Like the preceding centre-right government, Sócrates implemented a policy of fiscal austerity and structural reforms. Among the most important reforms were the 2007 Social Security reform and the 2009 labour law reform. His government also restructured the provision of public services, closing thousands of elementary schools and dozens of health care facilities and maternity wards in rural areas and small cities. Despite austerity, Sócrates’s government intended to boost economic growth through government-sponsored investments, namely in transportation, technology and energy as well as in health and school infrastructure. The government launched several public-private partnerships to finance such projects. Internally, Sócrates was accused of having an authoritarian style and of trying to control media, while internationally he completed the negotiations of Lisbon Treaty and had close ties with leaders such as the Prime Minister of Spain José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez. The first Sócrates government was initially able to reduce the budget deficit and controlling public debt, but economic growth lagged.
History of Brazil since 1985
In 2002, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT) won the presidency with more than 60% of the national vote. In the first months of his term, inflation rose perilously, reflecting the markets' uncertainty about the government's monetary policy. However, the markets' confidence in the government was regained as Lula chose to maintain his predecessor's policies, meaning the continuation of Central Bank's task of keeping inflation down. Since then, the country has undergone considerable economic growth and employment expansion. On the other hand, Lula's mainstream economic policies disappointed his most radical leftist allies, which led to a schism in the PT (Workers' Party) that resulted in the creation of PSOL.
2015 Portuguese legislative election
The Socialist Party reached agreements with the three other left-wing parties: the Left Bloc, the Communists and the Greens. Those agreements were eventually approved by the national organs of the Socialist Party on 8 November. On 10 November, the Portugal Ahead government programme was rejected in a motion of rejection by a vote of 123 to 107 MPs. On 26 November, a new government was established as a Socialist Party minority government led by Prime Minister António Costa.
2014 Portuguese Socialist Party prime ministerial primary
The 2014 Portuguese Socialist Party prime ministerial primary was held on 28 September 2014 and was the first primary open for non members of the Socialist Party and it elected the party's candidate for Prime Minister for the 2015 general election. It's the first time in Portugal that a party has an open primary. There were only two candidates running, António José Seguro current general secretary of the party and António Costa current mayor of Lisbon. António Costa won the primary by a landslide, achieving about 68% of the votes against the 32% of António José Seguro.
1996 Portuguese presidential election
Incumbent president Mário Soares was constitutionally barred from a third consecutive term. 
The Social Democrats were coming from a clear defeat in Portuguese legislative election, 1995, and their former leader, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who had left the office of Prime Minister after 10 years at the helm, lost by 400,000 votes to the Mayor of Lisbon, Jorge Sampaio.
José Manuel Barroso
While in opposition, Barroso was elected to the Assembly of the Republic in 1995 as a representative for Lisbon. There, he became chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. In 1999 he was elected president of his political party, PSD, succeeding Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa (a professor of law), and thus became Leader of the Opposition. Parliamentary elections in 2002 gave the PSD enough seats to form a coalition government with the right-wing Portuguese People's Party, and Barroso subsequently became Prime Minister of Portugal on 6 April 2002.
Os Grandes Portugueses
Os Grandes Portugueses () was a public poll contest organized by the Portuguese public broadcasting station RTP and hosted by Maria Elisa. Based on BBC's 100 Greatest Britons, it featured individual documentaries advocating the top ten candidates. The final vote took place on 25 March 2007, the winner being António de Oliveira Salazar, Portugal's dictator between 1932 and 1968.
Pedro Passos Coelho
On 5 June 2011, after the Portuguese legislative election, Passos Coelho was elected Prime Minister of Portugal. He achieved a historical win for his political party, the PSD, defeating José Sócrates of the Socialists. Through a coalition with CDS-PP, Passos Coelho and the PSD were in position to form a right-wing majority in the Portuguese Parliament. Immediately after the election, he started conversations with Christian-Democratic President Paulo Portas to form the coalition.
António Costa
In September 2014, the Socialist Party chose Costa as its candidate to be Prime Minister of Portugal in the 2015 national elections; in a ballot to select the party's candidate, gaining nearly 70 percent of the votes, he defeated party leader António José Seguro, who announced his resignation after the result. By April 2015, he stepped down as mayor to focus on his campaign.
António de Oliveira Salazar
Salazar stayed on as finance minister while military prime ministers came and went. From his first successful year in office, he gradually came to embody the financial and political solution to the turmoil of the military dictatorship, which had not produced a clear leader. Finally, on 5 July 1932, President Carmona appointed Salazar as the 100th prime minister of Portugal, after which he began to operate closer to the mainstream of political sentiment in his country. The authoritarian government consisted of a right-wing coalition, and he was able to co-opt the moderates of each political current with the aid of censorship and repression directed against those outside of it. Those perceived to be genuine fascists were jailed or exiled. Conservative Catholics were Salazar's earliest and most loyal supporters, whereas conservative republicans who could not be co-opted became his most dangerous opponents during the early period. They attempted several coups, but never presented a united front, consequently these attempts were easily repressed. Never a true monarchist, Salazar nevertheless gained most of the monarchists' support, as Manuel II of Portugal, the exiled and deposed last king of Portugal, always endorsed Salazar. Later, in 1932, it was due to Salazar's actions that the deposed king was given a state funeral. The National Syndicalists were torn between supporting the regime and denouncing it as bourgeois. They were granted enough symbolic concessions for Salazar to win over the moderates, but the rest were repressed by the political police. They were silenced shortly after 1933 as Salazar attempted to prevent the rise of National Socialism in Portugal.
Tabaré Vázquez
Renominated by the Broad Front for the Presidency with running mate Raúl Fernando Sendic on 1 June, he came up just a few thousand votes short of winning the presidency outright in the 26 October election. He was returned to office in the 30 November runoff, defeating right-wing candidate Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou of the National Party by 53% to 41% in the second round.
Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho
Summary of the Portuguese presidential election, 1980 election results
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Candidates 
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left rowspan="2"|Supporting parties 
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right colspan="2"|First round
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%
2011 Portuguese presidential election
The 2011 Portuguese presidential election was held on 23 January 2011. This election resulted in the re-election of Aníbal Cavaco Silva to a second term as President of Portugal. Turnout in this election was very low, where only 46.52% of the electorate cast their ballots. Cavaco Silva won by a landslide winning all 18 districts, both Autonomous regions of Azores and Madeira and 292 municipalities of a total of 308.
Party for Social Renewal
After Vieira was deposed on 7 May 1999, the transition government under Malam Bacai Sanhá arranged new elections. Ialá ran as the PRS candidate for president for a second time, emerging as the leading candidate in the first round. In the second round he defeated Sanhá by 72%–28%, becoming the country's first non-PAIGC president. The PRS also emerged as the largest party in the National People's Assembly, winning 38 of the 102 seats, whilst the PAIGC was also beaten by the Resistance of Guinea-Bissau-Bafatá Movement. The PRS nominated Caetano N'Tchama as Prime Minister in January 2000.
1982 Costa Rican general election
Affected by a deep economic crisis and tensions with Somoza’s Nicaragua due to Rodrigo Carazo’s support of the FSLN, Carazo’s government suffered from extremely low popularity. This naturally affected the Unity Coalition (Carazo’s party) and its candidate Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier giving to PLN and its candidate trade union leader and farmer Luis Alberto Monge a landslide victory and the party's biggest parliamentary group in its history (33 deputies). Nevertheless, Unity remained as the second most voted party in the election as Calderón was able to attract the traditional and very loyal Calderonista vote. The crisis was also beneficial for the Left as it achieved a historical high voting and four seats in Parliament (the biggest group since 1948) with Dr. Rodrigo Gutiérrez repeating candidacy from United People. Another candidate was former president Mario Echandi by the conservative and anti-Communist National Movement, but Echandi’s candidacy was testimonial receiving almost as many votes as Gutierrez (3% each), according to some due to his incapacity to understand modern times when personal wealth and family origin was not enough to win an election.
1980 Portuguese presidential election
Two days before the election, two of Soares Carneiro's leading supporters, Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro (no relation) and Defence Minister Adelino Amaro da Costa, died in the 1980 Camarate air crash while they were heading for a rally in Oporto. Despite the accident, the election went ahead as planned, and predictions that a second round would be needed were shown to be wrong, with Ramalho Eanes winning with almost 57 percent, against 40 percent for Soares Carneiro.
Manuel Baldizón
He was elected to the Congress for the National Advancement Party (PAN) in 2003, but joined the National Unity of Hope (UNE) of Álvaro Colom in 2006. Baldizón was re-elected as a Congressman in 2007. He defected from the governing UNE in 2009 and founded the LIDER party. In the 2011 general election, Manuel Baldizón was a presidential candidate. His running mate was Raquel Blandón, ex-wife of former president Vinicio Cerezo. In the first round on 11 September he won 1,004,215 votes (22.68%) and qualified for the runoff on 6 November. However he was defeated by the retired general Otto Pérez Molina of the Patriotic Party in this second turn, winning 1,980,819 votes (46.26%).
Os Grandes Portugueses
The 10 most voted-for personalities were revealed on 14 January 2007. All of the 10 finalists were deceased. The highest placed Great Portuguese still living by then was former president and prime minister Mário Soares (12th). On 25 March the final results were announced:
The SIC Notícias programme "Eixo do Mal" (Axis of Evil) held a parallel vote for Os Piores Portugueses (The Worst Portuguese), also won by António de Oliveira Salazar.
António de Oliveira Salazar
Despite the effects of an expensive war effort in African territories against guerrilla groups, Portuguese economic growth from 1960 to 1973 under the "Estado Novo" created an opportunity for real integration with the developed economies of Western Europe. In 1960, Portugal's per capita GDP was only 38 per cent of the European Community (EC-12) average; by the end of Salazar's rule in 1968, it had risen to 48 per cent; and in 1973, under the leadership of Marcelo Caetano, Portugal's per capita GDP had reached 56.4 per cent of the EC-12 average.
António de Oliveira Salazar
After the politically unstable and financially chaotic years of the Portuguese First Republic, financial stability was Salazar's highest priority. His first incursions into Portuguese politics as a member of the cabinet were during the "Ditadura Nacional", when Portugal's public finances and the economy in general were in a critical state, with an imminent threat of default since at least the 1890s. After Salazar became prime minister, he levied numerous taxes to balance the Portuguese budget and pay external debts. Salazar's first years were marked by the Great Depression and the Second World War. The first era of his rule was thus an economic program based on the policies of autarky and interventionism, which were popular in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression. Under Salazar, the Portuguese budget went from insolvency to showing a substantial surplus every year from 1928. Portugal's credit worthiness rose in foreign markets and the external floating debt was completely paid. However, Portugal remained largely underdeveloped, its population relatively poor and with low education attainment when compared to the rest of Europe.
Conservative Portuguese scholars such as Jaime Nogueira Pinto and Rui Ramos claim that Salazar's early reforms and policies allowed political and financial stability, therefore social order and economic growth. On the other hand, historians such as the leftist politician Fernando Rosas claim that Salazar's policies from the 1930s to the 1950s led to economic and social stagnation and rampant emigration that turned Portugal into one of the poorest countries in Europe.
António de Oliveira Salazar
In 2006 and 2007 two public opinion television shows aroused controversy. Salazar was elected the "Greatest Portuguese Ever" with 41 per cent of votes on the show "Os Grandes Portugueses" ("The Greatest Portuguese") from the RTP1 channel. He was presented by the scholar Jaime Nogueira Pinto, who described being confronted with some "reactions of perplexity, surprise, aggressiveness and even hostility" after having accepted the task. Salazar was also declared "Worst Portuguese Ever" in a public poll by the satirical debate program "Eixo do Mal" ("Axis of Evil") on the channel SIC Notícias. However, the official poll results for both of the two rounds hosted by this latter program show that the public had actually voted Mário Soares, a major opponent of Salazar and his regime, as "Worst Portuguese Ever". This led to viewers expressing concerns about the reliability and seriousness of the show, with the controversy extending to the poll on the show "The Greatest Portuguese", which Mário Soares called "total nonsense from start to end". Years previously, a survey from the channel SIC had also rated Salazar as 'The Greatest Portuguese Figure of the 20th Century'.
Angolan War of Independence
On 11 April, the Minister of National Defense Júlio Botelho Moniz - discontent with the attitude of Prime Minister Salazar regarding the Overseas policy and the conflict in Angola - leads a "coup d'état" attempt, which however fails. Following the aborted "coup" and now realizing that the conflict in Angola was more serious than what was initially thought, Prime Minister Salazar dismisses Botelho Moniz and assumes himself the Defense portfolio. On 13 April, Salazar speaks on television about the situation in Angola, using the famous phrase "Para Angola, rapidamente e em força" (To Angola, rapidly and in force). As part of the Government remodelation, Adriano Moreira is appointed Overseas Minister, initiating a series of liberal reforms in the Portuguese Overseas territories.
Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War)
Upon the outbreak of the civil war, Portuguese Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar almost immediately supported the National forces. Salazar's "Estado Novo" regime held tense relations with the Spanish Republic that held Portuguese dissidents to his regime in it. Portugal played a critical role in supplying Franco's forces with ammunition and many other logistical resources.
Despite its discreet direct military involvement — restrained to a somewhat "semi-official" endorsement, by its authoritarian regime, of an 8,000–12,000-strong volunteer force, the so-called "Viriatos" — for the whole duration of the conflict, Portugal was instrumental in providing the National faction with a vital logistical organization and by reassuring Franco and his allies that no interference whatsoever would hinder the supply traffic directed to the Nationals, crossing the borders of the two Iberian countries — the Nationals used to refer to Lisbon as "the port of Castile". In 1938, with Franco's victory increasingly certain, Portugal recognized Franco's regime and after the war in 1939 signed a treaty of friendship and non-aggression pact that was known as the Iberian Pact. Portugal played an important diplomatic role in supporting the Franco regime, including by insisting to the United Kingdom that Franco sought to replicate Salazar's "Estado Novo" and not Mussolini's Fascist Italy.
1969 Portuguese legislative election
Parliamentary elections were held in Portugal on 26 October 1969. The elections were announced on 12 August, and were the first under Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano, appointed in the previous year to replace long-term Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, who had been left incapacitated after a stroke. The quasi-sovereign National Union won all seats with an official turnout of 62.5%.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso
From May 1993 to April 1994, he was Minister of Finance and resigned in April 1994 to launch a presidential campaign. In the October 3 election, he won the presidency on the first round of voting with 54% of the vote, more than twice that of his nearest opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. This is still the largest margin of victory ever recorded in a free election in Brazilian history. After the constitution was amended to allow a president to succeed himself, he won a second term almost as easily in 1998, taking 53% to Lula's 31.7%. To date, he is the only president to win an outright majority of the popular vote, and the only one to win office without a runoff election since the popular elections were reinstated in 1989.
2005 Portuguese legislative election
The parties that partook in the election, and their leaders, were:With 230 seats the results are:José Sócrates, leader of the Socialist Party, was nominated Prime Minister.
2009 Portuguese legislative election
In the February 2005 early elections, the Socialists, under the leadership of José Sócrates, won 45% of the votes and 121 MPs, the 1st time the Socialits won a majority and the 1st time a single party won a majority since Cavaco Silva's PSD victory in 1991. The PSD suffered a heavy defeat, achieving their worst results since 1983, and faced with this failure, the then PSD leader and outgoing Prime Minister, Pedro Santana Lopes, resigned from the leadership and called an election for party chair. In the party's congress in April 2005, Luís Marques Mendes became party leader winning 56% of the delegates, against the 44% of his rival, Luís Filipe Menezes. During the first months in his government, Sócrates raised taxes to cut the deficit and initiated a policy of strict budgetary rigor. At the same time, he faced a very harsh summer with Wildfires across the country.
2006 Costa Rican general election
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 5 February 2006. In the presidential election, Óscar Arias of the National Liberation Party (Partido Liberación Nacional), a former president and Nobel Peace Laureate, was victorious over Ottón Solís of the Citizens' Action Party (Partido Acción Ciudadana) and twelve other minor-party candidates. Although Arias was expected to win by a wide margin, the actual polling reports were unexpectedly close. However, early results showed the contest to be closer than it actually was. The preliminary official report, after 88.45% of the vote counted, showed the result for President of the Republic almost tied between Arias with 40.51% of the vote and Ottón Solís with 40.29%. Given the small difference of only 3250 votes, the Superior Electoral Tribunal announced that a manual count of all the votes would start immediately and no official winner would be announced until that process was completed, approximately two weeks after the election.
2017 Angolan legislative election
Preliminary results released shortly after the election showed the MPLA with 64.8% of the vote. Final results released by the electoral commission on 6 September 2017 showed the MPLA receiving 61% of the vote, giving it a parliamentary majority of 150 out of 220 seats and ensuring that João Lourenço would become President.
On 27 August Samakuva challenged the election results. On 8 September, UNITA filed a lawsuit claiming evidence of voter fraud. However, the Constitutional Court rejected the opposition's appeal on 13 September. It was announced that Lourenço would be sworn in on September 26, 2017.
Estado Novo (Portugal)
Salazar suffered a stroke in 1968. As it was thought that he did not have long to live, Tomás replaced him with Marcelo Caetano, a reputed scholar of the University of Lisbon Law School, statesman and a distinguished member of the regime. Salazar was never informed of this decision, and reportedly died in 1970 still believing he was prime minister. Most of the people hoped Caetano would soften the edges of Salazar's authoritarian regime and modernize the already growing economy. Caetano moved on to foster economic growth and made important social improvements, such as the awarding of a monthly pension to rural workers who had never had the chance to pay social security. Some large scale investments were made at national level, such as the building of a major oil processing centre in Sines. The economy reacted very well at first, but into the 1970s some serious problems began to show, due in part to two-digit inflation (from 1970 and on) and to the effects of the 1973 oil crisis. However, the oil crisis of 1973 had a potentially beneficial effect to Portugal because the largely unexploited oil reserves that Portugal had in its overseas territories of Angola, and São Tomé and Príncipe were being developed at a fast pace.
Carlos Correia
When the office of Prime Minister was created again after having been abolished in 1984, Correia became Prime Minister on 27 December 1991 under President João Bernardo Vieira. After the first multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections in July 1994, which the PAIGC won, Manuel Saturnino da Costa succeeded him as head of government on 27 October.
Alliance de L'Avenir
The results was of MSM having 29 Mps, the Labour having 9 Mps and the PSMD left with 3 Mps . They formed the government with 45 Mps in all with Sir Anerood Jugnauth as Prime Minister, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam as Governor General, Gaetan Duval as Deputy Prime Minister and new leader of the labour, Sir Satcam Boolell became Minister of Foreign Affairs .
Fernando de la Rúa
The Pact of Olivos diminished the electoral strength of the UCR, leading to the rise of the Frepaso. Both parties united in a political coalition, the Alliance, which defeated the PJ in the 1997 midterm elections. It was the PJ's first national defeat since 1985. The parties held open primary elections for the 1999 presidential elections. De la Rúa stood for the UCR; the whole party, including Alfonsín, supported him. The Frepaso candidate was Graciela Fernández Meijide, who had defeated Peronism in the populous Buenos Aires province. De la Rúa won the primary elections by a wide margin. In the primaries, De la Rúa was voted for by more people than those who voted for the UCR in 1995. Despite his victory, Alfonsín was still the president of the UCR. They disagreed on the vice president for De la Rúa's ticket; he thought that it should be Meijide because she took part in the primary elections and came from a different district than him. Alfonsín preferred the popular Carlos Álvarez, leader of the Frepaso, saying he could attract more voters and had more political expertise. It was also a result of the internal politics of the Alliance: except for Meijide, the Frepaso did not have a political figure who may run with good chances for governor of the Buenos Aires province. Had she run for vicepresident, Frepaso would have had to resign that candidacy to a radical candidate.
Portuguese transition to democracy
The presidential election of 1986 did not yield a winner in the first round. The candidate of the CDS and the PSD, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, won 46.3% of the vote compared with 25.4% for Mário Soares. Freitas do Amaral, candidate of a united right, profited from the left's mounting of three candidates. In the two-candidate runoff election in mid-February, Soares won with 51.3% of the vote, getting the support of most left-wing voters. The PCP supported him as the lesser of two evils, even though Soares repeatedly reminded voters that he, perhaps more than anyone else, had prevented the communists from coming to power in the mid-1970s.
António de Oliveira Salazar
For forty years, Portugal was governed by a man that had been educated at a seminary, had received minor orders, and had considered becoming a priest. Before accepting the office of minister of finance, Salazar had been associated with several Catholic movements and had developed a very close friendship with Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira, who in 1929 would become Cardinal-Patriarch of Lisbon. During their university years at Coimbra they shared a house, an old convent known as "Os Grilos".
José María Aznar
The PP won the 3 March 1996 general election with 37.6% of the vote, thus ending 13 years of PSOE rule. With 156 of the 350 seats (the PSOE won 141) Aznar had to reach agreements with two regional nationalist parties, Convergence and Unity (Catalan) and the Canary Islands Coalition, in order to govern with additional support from the Basque Nationalist Party. He was voted in as Prime Minister with 181 votes in the Cortes Generales on 4 May and sworn in the next day by King Juan Carlos I.
António Guterres
In the 1999 parliamentary election the Socialist Party and the opposition won exactly the same number of MPs (115). Guterres was re-appointed for the office and from January to July 2000, occupied the six-month rotating presidency of the European Council. This second term in government was not as successful, however. Internal party conflicts along with a slowdown in economic growth and the Hintze Ribeiro Bridge disaster damaged his authority and popularity. Nevertheless, some long-lasting measures were taken during his second term: in October 2000, the Parliament approved the decriminalization of drug use (effective from 1 July 2001) and in March 2001, same-sex civil unions were legalized.
António de Oliveira Salazar
Salazar attended the primary school in his small village and later went to another primary school in Viseu. At age 11, he won a free place at Viseu's seminary, where he studied for eight years, from 1900 to 1908. Salazar considered becoming a priest, but like many who entered the seminary very young, he decided not to proceed to the priesthood after receiving holy orders. He went to Coimbra in 1910 during the first years of the Portuguese First Republic to study law at the University of Coimbra. During these student years in Coimbra, he developed a particular interest in finance and graduated in law with distinction, specialising in finance and economic policy. He graduated in 1914, with 19 points out of 20, a rare achievement which earned him instant fame, and in the meantime, became an assistant professor of economic policy at the Law School. In 1917, he became the regent of economic policy and finance by appointment of the professor José Alberto dos Reis. In the following year, Salazar was awarded his doctorate.
Hugo Banzer
Banzer opposed bitterly the UDP government of Siles which lasted from 1982 to 1985, but turned more conciliatory when Víctor Paz Estenssoro was elected president (by congress, due to the virtual inattainability of the 50% necessary for direct election) in 1985. Indeed, Banzer's party claimed authorship of some of the most important neoliberal economic reforms instituted by Paz to curb galloping hyperinflation, repress the ever-troublesome labor unions, and reduce the size of the government. Banzer finished second in the 1989 elections, but supported in Congress the third-place finisher, the allegedly left-leaning Jaime Paz, who became President with ADN help, in return for Paz's promise to support him in a future election. The former dictator again finished second in 1993, this time to the MNR's Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. The MNRs plurality, in coalition with the small center-left Bolivia Libre party, made it possible to confirm the MNR's electoral victory. In the 1997 elections, however, Banzer finished first by a small plurality, and was able to take the presidency with the support of Paz and others in a grand coalition ranging from Paz' Revolutionary Left Movement to Banzer's ADN on the right.
1995 Portuguese legislative election
The major parties involved were listed with their leaders:António Guterres, leader of the Socialist Party, was nominated Prime Minister for the first time, becoming the first socialist Prime Minister in 10 years.
Daniel Daio
He won the first multi-party legislative elections in 1991 with 54.4% and got 33 seats in parliament and later became Prime Minister on 7 February. The nation's economy was poor, he led reforms recommended by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank. Prices of goods and necessities were rising, the devaluation of the dobra by 40% led to massive protests and demands for resignation. On 16 May 1992, he left office and his post was succeeded by Norberto Costa Alegre.
Social Democratic Party (Portugal)
The PSD won a plurality (but not a majority) in the general election of 1985, and Cavaco Silva became Prime Minister. Economic liberalization and tax cuts ushered in several years of economic growth. After a motion of no confidence was approved, early elections were called for July 1987 which resulted in a landslide victory for the PSD, who captured 50.2% percent of the popular vote and 148 of the 250 parliamentary seats – the first time that any political party in Portugal had mustered an absolute majority in a free election. A strong economy, growing above 7% in 1988, ushered a big convergence between Portugal and other EU countries. They PSD won a historic 3rd term in the 1991 election, almost as easily as in 1987, but continuing high levels of unemployment and a lower economy, after 1993, eroded the popularity of the Cavaco Silva government.
Ottón Solís
A virtual tie between former President Óscar Arias and Solís forced a recount in the 2006 presidential election. Ultimately, Arias won, though by only a few thousand votes over the 40 percent threshold required to avoid a runoff in an election marked by voter absenteeism. The Citizens' Action party won 17 of the 57 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the national legislature, becoming the second most powerful political party in Costa Rica, ousting PUSC from their traditional position. In the general election of 2010, Solís' PAC only received approximately 25% of the total vote, while his rival, Laura Chinchilla, the PLN's candidate obtained 47% of the vote turnover. Solís' third attempt to reach the presidency of Costa Rica, and he said he would not run again.
Gualberto do Rosário
On February 11, 2001, the PACIV party won leadership in the parliamentary election. After the election, Do Rosário was replaced by the PACIV's party leader José Maria Neves as Prime Minister. Later that year, do Rosário stepped down from leading the MpD and was replaced by Filomena Delgado in August 2001.
Américo Tomás
In 1958, Tomás was chosen by then-Prime Minister António Salazar as the candidate of the ruling National Union party for the presidency of the republic, succeeding Francisco Craveiro Lopes. He ran against the opposition-backed Humberto Delgado. It initially appeared that the election ended as soon as Tomás was nominated, since the electoral system was so heavily rigged in favour of the National Union that he could not possibly be defeated. However, in an unusually spirited contest, Tomás was ultimately credited with 76.4 percent of the vote to Delgado's 23.5 percent. Most neutral observers believed, however, that Delgado would have won had the election been honest. Salazar was alarmed enough that he pushed through a constitutional amendment transferring election of the president to the legislature, which was firmly controlled by the regime. Tomás was re-elected by the legislature in 1965 as the only candidate.
Cavaco Silva's Cabinets (1985–95)
In February 1995, Cavaco Silva steped down as leader of PSD and chose not to run for a fourth term as Prime Minister in the October 1995 parliamentary election and instead run for President of Portugal in the January 1996 presidential election. Cavaco Silva's Minister of Defense Fernando Nogueira was chosen to succeed him as leader of PSD and to lead the party in the parliamentary election. Nogueira-led PSD lost the parliamentary election to the Socialist Party and António Guterres became Prime Minister. In January 1996, Cavaco Silva lost the presidential election to Socialist Jorge Sampaio. Cavaco Silva retired from politics for a decade: he contested and won the 2006 presidential election and was re-elected in 2011, serving as President of Portugal from 2006 to 2016.
António Soares Carneiro
In the 1980 presidential election, the right-wing Democratic Alliance, a coalition of the Social Democratic Party, the Democratic and Social Centre and the People's Monarchist Party, nominated Soares Carneiro as its candidate. Two of his leading supporters, Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro (no relation) and Defence Minister Adelino Amaro da Costa died in a plane crash while heading for a rally in Porto two days before the election. Most polls suggest that the deaths dd not have much influence in the result of the presidential elections since they predicted the re-election of President, General António Ramalho Eanes, who won 56% of the votes, was opposed to Soares Carneiro's 40%.
History of Honduras (1982–present)
Jose Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales of the Liberal Party won the November 27, 2005 presidential elections with less than a 4% margin of victory, the smallest margin in Honduran electoral history. Zelaya's campaign theme was "citizen power", and he vowed to increase transparency and combat narcotrafficking, while maintaining macroeconomic stability. The Liberal Party won 62 of the 128 congressional seats, just short of an absolute majority.
11th Regional Legislature (Azores)
The Socialist Party won these elections, taking eight of the nine islands of the archipelago (except on the island of Graciosa where the plurality of seats went to the PSD), electing 31 of the 57 regional deputies. The victory marked the fifth consecutive PS mandate, this time in the hands of its young leader. The elections were run under the shadow of national austerity programs imposed by the Troika and national government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, which conditioned many of the statements coming from most of the parties in the election. The president-elect originally avoided any reference to the economic crisis in Portugal in the aftermath of the elections, and focused more what he saw as the ""sweet victory"" over his competitors.
Bolivia
In the 1997 elections, General Hugo Banzer, leader of the Nationalist Democratic Action party (ADN) and former dictator (1971–78), won 22% of the vote, while the MNR candidate won 18%. At the outset of his government, President Banzer launched a policy of using special police-units to eradicate physically the illegal coca of the Chapare region. The MIR of Jaime Paz Zamora remained a coalition-partner throughout the Banzer government, supporting this policy (called the Dignity Plan). The Banzer government basically continued the free-market and privatization-policies of its predecessor. The relatively robust economic growth of the mid-1990s continued until about the third year of its term in office. After that, regional, global and domestic factors contributed to a decline in economic growth. Financial crises in Argentina and Brazil, lower world prices for export commodities, and reduced employment in the coca sector depressed the Bolivian economy. The public also perceived a significant amount of public sector corruption. These factors contributed to increasing social protests during the second half of Banzer's term.
José María Aznar
The People's Party, led by Aznar, won the most parliamentary seats at the 1996 general election, but he failed to obtain a majority in the Congress of Deputies, which forced the PP to seek the support of Basque (EAJ-PNV), Catalan (CiU and Canarian (CC) regionalists. He was finally invested Prime Minister on 4 May 1996, and his first term was marked by the market liberalization, deregulation of the economy, cut state expenses and privatized several state-owned companies. During his first term, the economy grew and Spain met the criteria to participate in the creation of the eurozone, but unemployment remained moderately high. Some relevant events in Aznar's first term were the assassination of PP politician Miguel Ángel Blanco by ETA. Aznar attempted to negotiate with ETA between 1998 and 1999, but the parties did not reach an agreement and violence continued.
António de Oliveira Salazar
Historian Tom Gallagher in 1983 criticised Salazar's excessive promises, writing that "Salazar was being deceitful when he told António Ferro in 1938, 'I estimate that within five years every child in this country will have the opportunity to read and write.' His true policy had been revealed six years earlier when he stated categorically, 'I consider more urgent the creation of elites than the necessity to teach people how to read'." However in a 2018 retrospective Gallagher argues that Salazar focused Portugal on the conservative values of family, local community and the Catholic faith. He rejected the secularism and anticlericalism of the French Revolution, which had a stronghold in the cities but was weak in rural areas. Negative traits that were seen in the governments of other parts of Europe were not prevalent. He never claimed the superiority of a pure Portuguese stock. There was no policy of antisemitism and he helped Jews escape the Nazis. Catholicism was emphasised but the bishops and the pope had to keep their place in the system he quietly controlled without fanfare or charisma. Nationalism was used as a major justification for building a huge global empire that long outlasted those of France, Britain and the others. Salazar also succeeded in using national pride to overwhelm localism and the bitter factionalism that had long troubled the nation before 1930. His coalition brought together monarchists, moderate republicans, businessmen, churchmen, landowners and the military. Each of these groups understood that only with him in charge could their privileges be guaranteed. He believed in stability not democracy, but Portugal remained poor as Europe flourished in the 1960s and 1970s. He spent large sums on soldiers to fight for control of the many colonies; it was a losing battle and by this time the old man was himself losing prestige and stature. He always rejected goals such as modernity and progress and liberalism in favour of tradition, stability and conservatism, and the themes are still echoed into the 21st century by his admirers.
Ioannis Alevras
PASOK won the elections with 170 MPs and New Democracy came second with only 111. Andreas Papandreou became Prime Minister again. Alevras was elected MP for the tenth and last time.
Antônio Britto
In the first round of elections, he won 49.2% of the valid votes, against 34.7% of its main competitor, Dutra. In the second round, getting support from the Progressive Party (PPR) and part of the Democratic Labour Party (PDT) (then governor of Alceu Collares), he obtained 52.2% of the votes against 47.8% for Olivio. The polarization PMDB/PT in Rio Grande do Sul was repeated in the elections of 1998 and 2002.
2006 Portuguese presidential election
In the parliamentary elections of 20 February 2005, the Socialist Party, led by José Sócrates, won for the first time in its history an absolute majority of seats, while the Social Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes fell below 30%, their worst result since 1983.
1958 Portuguese presidential election
The official tally was 76.4 percent for Thomaz and about 24 percent for Delgado. The regime's secret police force, PIDE, harassed Delgado's supporters, and there were many reports of massive electoral fraud. Indeed, many neutral observers believe that Delgado would have won had the election been honest. The results nevertheless shocked Salazar, and in 1959, he had the Constitution amended to transfer the presidential election to the National Assembly, which was a pliant tool of the regime. Universal suffrage was not reintroduced until after the Carnation Revolution in 1974.
Paraguay
For the 2008 general elections, the Colorado Party was favored in polls. Their candidate was Minister of Education Blanca Ovelar, the first woman to be nominated as a candidate for a major party in Paraguayan history. After sixty years of Colorado rule, voters chose Fernando Lugo, a former Roman Catholic Bishop and not a professional politician in civil government, and a member of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, Paraguay's largest opposition party. Lugo was an adherent of liberation theology. Lugo achieved a historic victory in Paraguay's presidential election, defeating the ruling party candidate, and ending 61 years of conservative rule. Lugo won with nearly 41% of the vote, compared to almost 31% for Blanca Ovelar of the Colorado party. Outgoing President Nicanor Duarte Frutos hailed the moment as the first time in the history of the nation that a government had transferred power to opposition forces in a constitutional and peaceful fashion.
Clodomir Santos de Morais
After the Workers' Party/PT electoral victory in 2003, large regional and national-scale OW 'PRONAGER' programs such as those that took place under the previous Fernando Henrique Cardoso's Brazilian Social Democracy Party dwindled both in size and in number. From then on, OWs in Brazil continue to be run on a more local(ized) basis, such as the Rondonia OWs in 2002. From September 2012 to January 2013 de Morais directed the Guajará Mirim Course OW.
1999 Portuguese legislative election
The major parties involved were listed with their leaders:António Guterres, leader of the Socialist Party, was nominated Prime Minister for the second time, and missed the absolute majority by one MP, achieving exactly half of the 230 MPs.
Óscar Arias
Arias announced in 2004 that he intended to run again for president in the February 2006 general elections. By then, he was the only living former president who was not either in jail, under indictment or facing an investigation. Though for years private polling companies and several news media published polls predicting Arias would win by a wide margin, the election was initially deemed too close to call. A month later, on 7 March, after a manual recount, the official results showed Arias beat center-left contender Ottón Solís by 18,169 votes (1.2% of valid votes cast), and finished just a few thousand votes over the 40 percent threshold required to capture the presidency in a single round. He took the oath of office at noon on 8 May 2006 at the National Stadium. In his speech on 15 September 2008, he admitted that he was tired because of the criticism of his opponents.
Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho
In 1980, Otelo was a candidate in the Portuguese presidential elections. Otelo was nominated for the presidency by the far-left political party he founded, the Força de Unidade Popular (FUP). Otelo's campaign was centered on building socialism in Portugal. Once again, Otelo received support and advice from Portuguese musician Jose Afonso throughout the campaign. Otelo finished third in the elections with 85,896 votes (1.4%). After the election, Otelo confessed that he voted for his rival Eanes in the election, "to avoid the victory of the right-wing candidate Soares Carneiro".
António de Oliveira Salazar
Due to Salazar's long rule, a detached evaluation of him is difficult. He is considered either a saviour of interwar Portugal and an exponent of Christian philosophy in politics, or, on the contrary, a fascist-leaning dictator who obstructed his country's democratic evolution.
Humberto Delgado
As incumbent president Craveiro Lopes had been coerced by Salazar into standing down after only one term, Delgado faced archconservative naval minister Américo Tomás, the regime's candidate, in the 1958 presidential election. Delgado campaigned vigorously, even though he faced nearly impossible odds. In a famous interview on 10 May 1958, in the "Chave d'Ouro" café, when asked what would be his attitude towards Salazar, Delgado made one of the most famous quotations in Portuguese politics: ""Obviamente, demito-o!"" ("Obviously, I'll sack him!"). He was well aware that the president's power to remove the prime minister from office was essentially the only check on Salazar's power.
Jorge Sampaio
It is generally considered that Sampaio's presidency were marked by a firm sense of prudence and moderation, an approach which earned him a remarkably uneventful first term in office. In 2004, however, his refusal to hold early elections following Social Democratic Prime Minister José Manuel Durão Barroso's resignation met with vigorous protest from all left-wing parties and even led to the stepping down of Socialist leader Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues. Sampaio made this decision to ensure political stability at a time when the country was facing economic recession, and he appointed Pedro Santana Lopes as Prime Minister. However, only four months afterwards, on 30 November, Sampaio concluded that the new cabinet was not achieving the desired stability, but quite the opposite, and he therefore dissolved the Parliament, calling new elections for February 2005.
Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo
Suárez decided to keep him in the Cabinet, first from 1978 to 1980 as Minister for Relations of the European Economic Community, then as Second Vicepresident in charge of economic affairs. After the resignation of Suárez on 29 January 1981, he was supposed to be appointed Prime Minister () on 23 February, and advocated Spain's proposed entry into NATO as soon as possible. However, on that date a session of the Congress of Deputies was interrupted by the attempted coup of 23-F. After the failed coup, his appointment as Prime Minister was confirmed on 25 February by the vote of all the UCD members of the congress and 21 others as well, giving him a majority of 186 to 158. Splits in the UCD group led to the formation of three rival parties, the Democratic Action Party (Partido de Acción Democrática/PAD), which soon merged with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), the Democratic and Social Centre (CDS) and Democratic Popular Party (PDP), resulting in the UCD being unable to count on sufficient support in the legislature. Fresh elections were called, resulting in a heavy defeat for the UCD, which won only 12 seats at the 1982 election compared to 168 in 1979. He served as Prime Minister until 1 December 1982 and was succeeded by the socialist Felipe González.
2017 Portuguese local elections
The Socialist Party (PS) was the big winner of the elections consolidating their position as the largest local party in Portugal. The PS won 160 mayors, 10 more than in 2013, and more than 38% of the votes. The Socialists maintained control in cities like Lisbon, although here they lost their majority, Funchal and Coimbra, at the same time they gained some strong PSD bastions like Chaves or Mirandela. Nonetheless, the PS lost one of their bastions, Vila do Conde, to an independent. The strong nationwide results for the PS helped to legitimize António Costa's position as Prime Minister after his loss in the 2015 general elections. It was also the first time since 1985, that the party in government clearly won a nationwide local election.
1992 Andorran parliamentary election
Voter turnout was 82.4%. A total of 19 candidates were elected on the first round, with the remaining nine seats – one seat in Canillo, four in La Massana and four in Escaldes-Engordany – elected in the second round.
Relation of the elected candidates with the standing government:
Òscar Ribas Reig was re-elected as Prime Minister.