2009 European Parliament election in Portugal


The European Parliament election of 2009 in Portugal was the election of the delegation from Portugal to the European Parliament held on 7 June 2009.
The election was a huge setback for the Socialist Party, which lost almost 18 percentage points. Basically all predictions that said that the PS would win comfortably the election, were wrong. As a result, the party also lost five of its twelve MEP's. The Social Democrats were the big winners in these elections, surprising pundits and analysts who predicted a very complicated result for the PSD leader, Manuela Ferreira Leite. The PSD won 31.7% of the vote and 8 seats. It was the first victory of the PSD, in European elections, since 1989. The People's Party also had a surprising result, winning 8% of the vote and electing 2 MEP's. Both PSD and CDS-PP, who ran in a joint list in 2004, increased sharply their scores and together they won more than 40% of the vote and 10 MEP's.
On the left, both the Left Bloc and Democratic Unity Coalition achieved very good results with the historic fact that BE surpassed CDU in term of votes and seats for the first time, although only just. Both parties increased their scores at the expense of the Socialist Party. The Left Bloc won 10.7% of the vote and 3 MEP's, their best score in EU elections to date, and CDU surpassed once again the 10% mark winning 10.6% of the vote, but maintaining the 2 MEP they got in 2004.
Turnout in the elections was quite low, as only 36.78% of the electorate cast a ballot, a slightly lower share than in the 2004 election. Although the number of ballots cast was higher than in 2004, the number of registered voters increased considerably in these elections, making the final turnout share lower than in 2004.

Electoral System

The voting method used, for the election of European members of parliament, is by proportional representation using the d'Hondt method, which is known to benefit leading parties. In the 2009 EU elections, Portugal had 22 seats to be filled. Deputies are elected in a single constituency, corresponding to the entire national territory.

Parties and candidates

The lists were headed by
Exit polls from the three major television networks in Portugal, RTP1, SIC and TVI were given precisely at 20:00 pm on 7 June 2009.

Results

Distribution by European group

Maps