1980 Portuguese legislative election

The Assembly of the Republic has 250 members elected to four-year terms. Governments do not require absolute majority support of the Assembly to hold office, as even if the number of opposers of government is larger than that of the supporters, the number of opposers still needs to be equal or greater than 126 (absolute majority) for both the Government's Programme to be rejected or for a motion of no confidence to be approved. The number of seats assigned to each district depends on the district magnitude. The use of the d'Hondt method makes for a higher effective threshold than certain other allocation methods such as the Hare quota or Sainte-Laguë method, which are more generous to small parties. For these elections, and compared with the 1979 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following: == Parties ==

The table below lists the parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic during the second half of the 1st legislature (1976–1980), as the 1979 election was a national by-election, and that also contested the elections: Seat changes • In January 1980, MPs Francisco Sousa Tavares, José Medeiros Ferreira, Armando Adão Silva, Nuno Maria Matos and Pelágio Madureira, elected in the Democratic Alliance lists, left the Social Democratic Party caucus and formed their own parliamentary group, the Reformers, following the agreement made with AD in order for them to be elected. ==Campaign period==

Party slogans ==Opinion polling==

National summary Distribution by constituency Maps File:1980 Portuguese legislative election district results.svg|Winner and seats by constituency. File:Pt plelection 1980.PNG|First and second most voted political force by constituency. File:Eleições legislativas portuguesas de 1980.png|Most voted political force by municipality. ==Aftermath==

Death of Francisco Sá Carneiro Just two months after winning the 1980 elections, and while campaigning for the Democratic Alliance's candidate for the December 1980 Presidential election, Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro and his Defense minister Adelino Amaro da Costa, along with their spouses Snu Abecassis and Maria Vaz Pires, respectively, and the plane's pilot, died in tragic air crash when the small aircraft they were on board crashed and burned in Camarate, Loures, shortly after taking off from Lisbon Airport. This tragic air crash sparked a series of conspirancy theories, mainly because of Portugal' involvement in the Iran–Iraq War and the supply of weapons to both Iraq and Iran. Several investigations surrounding the crash were conducted and the official cause of the crash is still a matter of intense debate. Diogo Freitas do Amaral was appointed as Interim Prime Minister until the election of Francisco Pinto Balsemão as PSD leader and subsequent nomination as Prime Minister. Fall of the government The Balsemão governments were very unstable due to lack of leadership and deep disagreements between the three parties that composed the Democratic Alliance (AD). In the 1982 local elections, the AD was able to gather 42 percent of the votes, against the 31 percent of the PS and 20.5 percent of APU, but suffered loses and many within the coalition, mainly Diogo Freitas do Amaral, labeled the results as a disaster. With this background, Pinto Balsemão resigned as Prime Minister and the PSD proposed names for Prime Minister to President António Ramalho Eanes. However, President Eanes refused to swear in a new AD government and dissolved Parliament by calling elections for 25 April 1983. ==See also==