The previous elections:
Portuguese elections 1975Portuguese elections 1976Portuguese elections 1979Portuguese elections 1980Portuguese elections 1983Portuguese elections 1985Portuguese elections 1987Portuguese elections 1991Portuguese elections 1995Portuguese elections 1999The 2002 general election, scheduled for March 17, was called after the resignation of António Guterres as PM, in December 2001.
Parties:
PS - Socialist Party center-left, leader Ferro Rodrigues
PPD/PSD - Social Democratic Party, center-right, leader José Manuel Durão Barroso
CDS-PP - CDS-People's Party, center-right, leader Paulo Portas
CDU - Unitary Democratic Coalition (PCP, PEV), left-wing, leader Carlos Carvalhas
BE - Left Bloc, left-wing, leader Francisco Louçã
PCTP/MRPP - Portuguese Workers' Communist Party, far-left/Maoism, leader António Garcia Pereira
MPT - Earth Party, center-right, leader Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles
PPM - People's Monarchist Party, right-wing, leader Miguel Pignatelli Queiroz
PSN - National Solidarity Party, centrist/pensioners' rights
PH - Humanist Party, center-left,
POUS - Workers Party of Socialist Unity, far-left, leader Carmelinda Pereira
PNR - National Renovator Party, far-right, leader José Pinto Coelho
Background:
The 1999 election resulted, once again, in a hung parliament with the PS winning exactly half of all MPs in Parliament, 115, one short of an absolute majority. The result was a big disappointment for the PS and election night '99 was a bitter one for the PS. Poll were predicting a 50%+ victory for the PS. Guterres was once again nominated as PM, but his second term would be marked by many controversies. Corruption scandals started to plague the government and, after 2000, the economy started to drop considerably. Guterres was also feeling difficulties in Parliament in approving legislation. This time around, he couldn't count with the occasional "support" of the PSD, as they were blocking every policy of Guterres. CDS wouldn't support him nor would CDU and BE. So, a strange solution was arranged. Guterres was successful in gaining the support of a CDS MP that was also mayor of Ponte de Lima, a city in the North region. In exchange for his support, Guterres and his government would help investments in the city's factories, especially a cheese factory. This CDS MP voted in favour of Guterres budgets, but was, of course, expelled from CDS, becoming thus an independent MP. The budgets between 2000 and 2002 were called "the Limiano budgets", a reference to the cheese factory in Ponte de Lima. In 2001, the decriminalization of drugs was also approved by Parliament, with the big opposition of PSD and CDS-PP.
This arrangement wasn't very popular in the PS and, by early 2001, the feeling was that Guterres lost the comand of his party and his government. But, worse things were yet to come. In March 2001, a bridge in the Douro river collapsed killing 59 people. The Hintze Ribeiro disaster, name of the bridge that collapsed, highlighted the poor conditions of the infrastructure in Portugal, and hours after the disaster, the then minister of infrastructures, Jorge Coelho, resigned. Guterres was badly received when he visited the site, with people insulting him and his government. By late 2001, the economy was falling dramatically, causing the PS to drop in opinion polls and of being surpassed by the PSD for the first time in many years. All of this culminated in the 2001 local election campaign. In these elections, the PS was trying to defend the big cities, almost all of them were controlled by the PS, and polls predicted that at least the two big ones, Lisbon and Porto, would continue controlled by the PS. Polls failed completely and the PS lost Lisbon, by a hair, and Porto, plus Sintra, Coimbra and others. The PSD won 159 cities to the PS's 113. Guterres, tired and bruised, resigned of election night saying he doesn't want the country to fall "in a political swamp". Shortly after, Guterres also resigned from the PS leadership, and Ferro Rodrigues was elected as the new leader.
On the opposition benches, the PSD leader, Durão Barroso, was quite unpopular as leader and he faced many leadership challenges during this time. The scandals surrounding Guterres, his team, and the PS weren't giving the PSD good polling numbers and only by late 2001, the trend started to go in their favour. In the 2001 local elections, the PSD achieved their best results since 1985 and became, 12 years later, the biggest local political party in Portugal. During this period, no major changes occurred in the three smaller parties, CDU, CDS-PP and BE.
During the campaign, polls showed that the PS, with help of its new leader Ferro Rodrigues, was being able to close the gap with the PSD. In fact, in terms of personal popularity, Ferro Rodrigues was more popular than Durão Barroso. The PSD campaigned on a platform of a "fiscal shock", cutting taxes and cutting spending. While the PS campaigned on the positive changes it made during the Guterres government, particularly social programs. CDU feared the close margin between PSD and PS, would prompt CDU voters to vote PS in order to stop a PSD victory, as Rodrigues was quite popular among left-wing voters. CDS-PP campaigned hard against both PS and PSD, while BE wanted to increase its MPs in Parliament. The stage was set for the 2002 elections.
Poll
