The failed revision of the electoral system

Abstract

Another attempt at revising the Portuguese electoral system has failed. The constitutional revision in 1997 introduced the possibility of reducing the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) to 180 and administering single-member constituencies, while still within the proportional system, using the d'Hondt rule. After that, the socialist government presented a draft proposal to create «single-member constituencies» along with «partial multi-member selection constituencies» and a «national constituency» and the 195 MPs of the partial constituencies (of which 94 would be candidates in the single-member constituencies). The subsequent bill increased the number of single-member constituencies to 103 and gave the voters two votes: one for the single-member constituencies and the other for the national and partial constituencies. The Social Democratic Party countered with another bill, which not only introduced the majority system to count local votes in the single-member constituencies but also reduced considerably the number of MPs which the socialists did not accept. The agreement needed for the two thirds of the votes to revise the law thus fell through.