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ABSTRACT
Since the Portuguese revolution of April 25th, 1974, and the beginning of the democratic regime (with the first elections for parliament held on April 25th, 1975), political parties dominate the electoral process, both on central government and on the municipalities. The analysis of the political elites, their party filiations and recruitment and their social backgrounds has occupied Portuguese social scientists for the last years. With this paper, the author proposes to establish the relationship between these two levels of government, national and local, and access the importance of political parties in each of them. Many mayors’ political careers include vertical mobility, both upwards and downwards: from mayors to members of parliament to members of the European Parliament and ministers or even Prime Minister and President of the Republic (in the case of two mayors of Lisbon), or from ministers and members of parliament to mayors. In all of these cases, their party and their position within the party has played a central role, even when some individuals have pursued other party choices in order to get re-elected, or even have presented independent candidacies (only possible since 1997).
Notes
This article is a revised version of the paper presented at the ECPR, Helsinki Joint Sessions, Department of Political Science, University of Helsinki, Finland, 7-12 May, 2007, Workshop No. 6: ‘Comparative Perspectives on Local Party Politics’, Drs Colin Copus and Henk van der Kolk Directors. The research was made for a project titled ‘Local political power from the Estado Novo to Democracy: Mayors and civil governors, 1936-2002’, financed by the FCT: the Foundation for Science and Technology, Lisbon. I am grateful to all my colleagues who have made useful comments and suggestions during the conference.
3According to article 116th of the 1976 Portuguese Constitution, elections are direct, free, secret, regular and universal, based on the system of proportional representation.
4Decree number 621-A/74, November 15th, 1974.
5Independent candidacies for parliament and municipalities have been allowed since 1976, but only within party lists, articles 151st and 239th of the Portuguese Constitution.
6Portuguese Constitution of 1976, article 237th. See Almeida (Citation1991: 498).
7‘It was considered, in 1976, that, with the young multi-party system, there was an advantage for democracy and for local government itself to introduce and consolidate political parties locally, as references of the democratic system’, MP Artur Torres Pereira (PSD), Parliament's journal (Diário da Assembleia da República), July 30th, 1997, pp. 3915–25. Available at http://debates.parlamento.pt/?pid=r3
8This is the contrary of what has happened with Eastern European countries’ transition in the 1990s, where political definition has not yet been achieved and political parties are having a hard time establishing themselves and conquering majorities (Karasimeonov 2005).
9Statutes of Members of Parliament: Law no. 3/2001, February 23rd, 2001 has changed article 20th of Law 7/93.
10Parliament's journal (Diário da Assembleia da República), July 30th, 1997, pp. 3915–25. Available at http://debates.parlamento.pt/?pid=r3
11The same did not happen to the proposal for allowing independent candidacies for parliament, which was rejected.
12The lists have to include name and identification, but they do not need statutes, Law 1/2001, August 14th, 2001, articles 19th to 24th.
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Maria Antónia Pires de Almeida
Maria Antónia Pires de Almeida was born in Lisbon, Portugal. Post-graduate in European Studies, with a PhD in Contemporary History and a Post-Doctoral research project on Political Science, focusing on Local Government. Researcher at the CIES – Centre for Sociology Research Studies, ISCTE – Higher Institute of Social Sciences and Business Studies, Lisbon, with a project titled “The Portuguese MPs in Comparative Perspective: Elections, Leadership and Representation”, André Freire coordinator, CIES. Researcher at Centre for the History of Science and Technology, Department of Applied Social Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, New Lisbon University. Recent published work: A Revolução no Alentejo. Memo′ria e Trauma da Reforma Agra′ria em Avis [The Revolution in the Alentejo. Memory and Trauma of the Agrarian Reform in Avis], Lisboa, Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2006; “Memory and trauma of the Portuguese Agrarian Reform: a case study”, Portuguese Journal of Social Science, 6 (2), 2007, pp. 63–76: “Independents and Citizen's Groups in Portuguese Municipalities”, Reiser, Mario; Holtmann, Everhard (Eds.) – Farewell to the Party Model? Independent Local Lists in East and West European Countries, vol. 11, Wiesbaden, VS Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften, 2008, pp. 233–251