The Portuguese local elections of 2013 took place on 29 September. The elections consisted of three separate elections in the 308 Portuguese municipalities, the election for the Municipal Chambers, whose winner is elected mayor, another election for the Municipal Assembly, as well an election for the lower-level Parish Assembly, whose winner is elected parish president. This last will be held separately in the more than 3,000 parishes around the country. There was a reduction in the number of Parishes of more than 1000 parishes and, consequently, Parishes Assemblies and their respective leadership positions due to a local government reform undertaken by the Government led by Pedro Passos Coelho. The process of submitting candidacies for these elections was marked by interpretation differences of the limitation of mandates law, which prohibits a candidate, after serving three terms, to run for Mayor, Municipal Assemblies or Parish Assemblies. The controversy lied in the fact that the law does not state explicitly whether it prohibits reelection candidacies for the same municipality or parish, or if, on the contrary, the candidate is barred from seeking reelection for the same position in any municipality or parish. Candidates affected by this issue included Luis Filipe Menezes, running in Porto, and Fernando Seara, who was standing in Lisbon. This controversy ended on 5 September 2013 with the decision of the Constitutional Court considering only territorial the limitation of mandates and, there so, giving permission to mayoral candidates that had already serve three consecutive mandates to run for another municipality. The Social Democratic Party was the biggest loser of these elections, as it lost almost a third of the municipalities that it held, although the PSD did gain several traditionally Socialist bastions like Braga and Guarda. The Socialist Party won the largest number of municipal chambers in its history surpassing its previous best result in 2009. It also won the largest number of mayorships of any party in the history of Portugal. Despite the Socialists victory however, the PS lost to the PSD the cities of Braga and Guarda and to the CDU in the cities of Loures, Beja and Évora. The PS also reconquered Coimbra and won in two large social democratic strongholds, Vila Real and Funchal. The election was also marked by the strong electoral performances of various independent groups, which won several chambers. The most significant was the victory of independent Rui Moreira in Porto, who was supported by CDS-PP. The Democratic Unity Coalition increased its number of municipal chambers as well as its number of councilors by winning several chambers previously held by the Socialists, including winning back their historical stronghold of Loures. However, despite increasing their overall number of mayors, they also lost three chambers they won in 2009 to the Socialists; Chamusca, Crato, and Nisa. In Chamusca they had held the mayorship since 1979. The People's Party broke a cycle of decline in local elections and won 5 municipalities, 4 more than in 2009. The Left Bloc suffered a heavy defeat, losing the only chamber they had, and electing fewer councillors than in 2009. The turnout in these elections was the lowest ever, with 52.6% of voters casting their ballot.
Parties
The main political forces that will be involved in the election are:
