Turnout: 51.43%
About this election
The snap Portuguese legislative election of 30 January 2022 delivered a surprise: António Costa's Socialist Party (PS) not only survived the collapse of its left-wing support but won its first absolute majority since 2005, taking 120 of the 230 seats. Called after the radical left and the centre-right joined to vote down the government's budget, the election was widely expected to produce another hung parliament; instead voters handed Costa a single-party majority.
The Assembly of the Republic's 230 members are elected by D'Hondt proportional representation across 22 constituencies for four-year terms; an absolute majority requires 116 seats. Because Portugal's recent governments had all been minorities reliant on parliamentary deals, a single-party majority — last achieved by the PS under José Sócrates in 2005 — represented a marked concentration of power. The separately elected President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, had dissolved parliament after the budget defeat, judging that the institutional crisis warranted fresh elections rather than a reshuffled majority.
Costa framed the choice starkly: a stable Socialist majority versus a return to instability, urging former Bloc and Communist voters to back the PS directly to avoid another budget crisis. The PSD under Rui Rio offered a centrist alternative but was hampered by doubts over whether it would govern with the rising radical right. The campaign's late surge came from Chega, whose leader André Ventura pushed anti-establishment and anti-immigration themes, and from the liberal IL. A final-week tightening of the polls appears to have driven tactical consolidation behind the PS.
The PS won 41.37% and 120 seats — an absolute majority. The PSD took 29.12% and 77 seats. The story below the top two was the realignment of the smaller parties: Chega leapt to 7.18% and 12 seats to become the third force, and Iniciativa Liberal rose to 4.92% and eight seats, while the parties of the old left were routed — the Left Bloc fell to five seats and the CDU to six. The CDS–PP, for the first time since the Carnation Revolution, won no seats at all. The PS swept every constituency in the country except Madeira, which the local PSD-led coalition retained.
António Costa formed a majority Socialist government, but the term proved turbulent: a series of ministerial resignations and controversies culminated in November 2023, when Costa resigned after prosecutors named him in a corruption investigation linked to lithium and hydrogen projects. President Marcelo again dissolved parliament rather than allow the PS to choose a successor premier, setting up the March 2024 election and confirming how fragile even an absolute majority had proved.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.