The Portuguese legislative election of 2005 took place on 20 February. The election renewed all 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic. These elections were called after the decision of PresidentJorge Sampaio on 30 November 2004 to dissolve the Parliament as an answer to the political instability caused by the government led by Pedro Santana Lopes in coalition with the PP. Santana Lopes had become Prime Minister in July 2004, after José Manuel Durão Barroso left the country in order to become President of the European Commission in a decision that divided the country, because many Portuguese were expecting that the Socialist President Jorge Sampaio would dissolve the Parliament and call a legislative election. However, after five unstable months, President Sampaio decided to dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections. The Prime Minister nevertheless announced the resignation of the government on 11 December, in an action with no practical effects whatsoever. The campaign started officially on 6 February and the major topics were the problematic state of the country's finances, unemployment, abortion and even José Sócrates's alleged homosexuality. Headed by Sócrates, the centre-left Socialist Party won the election with a landslide victory, winning in 19 of the 22 electoral constituencies, including in districts that historically voted for the right. The Socialist Party conquered its first absolute majority, receiving 45% of the electorate vote and 52% of the seats in the Parliament. The centre-right parties, mainly the Social Democrats, were punished for their performance in government, and lost more than 11% of votes they had garnered in the previous election. On the left, the Left Bloc achieved its best result ever and made the biggest climb, gaining 5 MPs, while the CDU gained 2 MPs and reversed their downward trend of the last elections. A curiosity about this election is that, as of 2020, both leaders of the two main parties, José Sócrates and Pedro Santana Lopes, are no longer members of their respective parties. Voter turnout was the highest since 1995, as 64.3% of the electorate cast a ballot.
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 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.
Parties
The parties that partook in the election, and their leaders, were:
