1976 Portuguese local elections

1976 Portuguese local elections

12 December 1976 1979 →
All 304 Portuguese municipalities and 4,260 Portuguese Parishes All 1,908 local government councils
Turnout	64.7%
First party Second party   Leader Mário Soares Francisco Sá Carneiro Party PS PSD Popular vote 1,377,684 1,014,092 Percentage 33.0% 24.3% Mayors 115 115 Councillors 691 624   Third party Fourth party   Leader Álvaro Cunhal Diogo Freitas do Amaral Party PCP CDS Alliance FEPU Popular vote 720,499 693,766 Percentage 17.3% 16.6% Mayors 37 36 Councillors 268 317

Local elections were held in Portugal on Sunday, 12 December 1976. They were the first local elections in Portugal. The democratic revolution of 1974 introduced the concept of democratic local power, that should be exerted by the citizens in their towns and cities. These elections ended a cycle of three elections in 1976, after the 1976 legislative election in April and the 1976 Presidential election in June.

The elections were meant to elect for the first time the administration of the about 300 municipalities of the country and of the about 4000 parishes that composed those 300 municipalities. They consisted of three elections in each of the municipalities; the election for the municipal chamber, whose winner is automatically elected mayor, similar to first-past-the-post (FPTP), the election for the municipal assembly and the lower-level election for the parish assembly, whose winner is also automatically elected as President.

The Socialist Party gathered the majority of the voting and mandates, beating the Social Democratic Party, although both parties tied in number of elected mayors, 115. The Communists led coalition, the Electoral Front United People, dominated the election in the South of the country, with more than 17 percent of the votes and elected 37 mayors. The right-wing Democratic Social Center, following their strong showing in the 1976 April legislative election, achieved its best result ever in local elections, almost 17 percent of the votes and 36 mayors.

Turnout in these elections was quite low, as 64.7% of the electorate cast a ballot, compared with the 83.5% turnout rate of the 1976 general elections in April.