In the aftermath of the
2002 legislative election, PSD and CDS–PP formed a coalition government, the first coalition between both parties in nearly 20 years. During this period, several events dominated the coalition's term in office: The weak economic situation of the country; Portugal becoming a major ally of the
United States in the
War in Iraq, which split public opinion; And the
Casa Pia child sexual abuse scandal, during 2003, in which several high-profile names, from celebrities to
Socialist members very close to party's leadership, then chaired by
Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, were arrested. After more than two years in office, Prime Minister
José Manuel Durão Barroso announced, in June 2004, that he was resigning from office in order to become
President of the European Commission.
Pedro Santana Lopes succeeded Durão Barroso as Prime Minister. One of those disputes, the resignation of Youth and Sports Minister,
Henrique Chaves, which was a close ally of Santana, precipitated the fall of the government, as Chaves accused Santana of not being "loyal and truthful". Following this,
President Jorge Sampaio had "enough" of crises and accused the government of "contradictions and lack of coordination that contributed to its discredit". Therefore, Sampaio used his power of dissolution of
Parliament and called a snap election, the only time till date such power was used in Portuguese democracy. A new election was called, by the President, for February 2005.
Leadership changes and challenges Social Democratic Party Following the resignation of
José Manuel Durão Barroso as Prime Minister and PSD leader, the
Social Democratic Party (PSD) initiated the process to elect a new leader.
Pedro Santana Lopes, by then
Mayor of Lisbon, was the sole candidate for the leadership and his name was overwhelmingly confirmed in a National Party Council meeting on 1 July 2004. The results were the following: Two weeks later, on 17 July 2004, Santana Lopes was sworn in as
Prime Minister.
Socialist Party On early July 2004, PS leader
Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues resigned from the leadership against President
Jorge Sampaio decision to nominate
Pedro Santana Lopes as Prime Minister, following the resignation of
Durão Barroso, rather than calling a snap legislative election. New elections to select a new leader were called for 25 and 26 September 2004. Former environment minister
José Sócrates,
Manuel Alegre and the son of former President
Mário Soares,
João Soares, contested the leadership ballot. José Sócrates was elected by a landslide and the results were the following:
Portuguese Communist Party In the fall of 2004, PCP leader
Carlos Carvalhas decided to step down from the party's leadership after 12 years in the post.
Jerónimo de Sousa was selected as candidate for the leadership and was elected in the party's congress during the weekend of 27 and 28 November 2004. The results were the following:
Electoral system The
Assembly of the Republic has 230 members elected to four-year terms. Governments do not require absolute majority support of the Assembly to hold office, as even if the number of opposers of government is larger than that of the supporters, the number of opposers still needs to be equal or greater than 116 (absolute majority) for both the Government's Programme to be rejected or for a
motion of no confidence to be approved. 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 2002 elections, the MPs distributed by districts were the following: ==Parties==