1958 Portuguese presidential election

Presidential elections were held in Portugal on 8 June 1958, during the authoritarian Estado Novo regime led by Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar.

1958 Portuguese presidential election

← 1951 8 June 1958 1965 →
Turnout77.35% (Increase 0.18pp)
 
Fotografia oficial do Presidente da República Américo Tomás.jpg
General Humberto Delgado (cropped).jpg
Candidate Américo Tomás Humberto Delgado
Party UN Independent
Popular vote 765,081 236,057
Percentage 76.42% 23.58%

Results by district, councils and overseas provinces

President before election

Francisco Craveiro Lopes
UN

Elected President

Américo Tomás
UN

Incumbent President Francisco Craveiro Lopes had clashed with Salazar and did not seek another term, either as candidate of the regime or for the opposition, which deemed the incumbent president capable of winning the race. In Craveiro Lopes' place, the National Union, the sole legal political party, levied naval minister Américo Tomás, a conservative.

The democratic opposition backed Air Force General Humberto Delgado, who ran as an independent in an attempt to challenge the regime. When asked if he would retain Salazar if elected, Delgado famously replied, "Obviously, I'll sack him."[1] Delgado knew that under Portugal's corporatist constitution, the president still had the right to dismiss the prime minister, which was effectively the only check on Salazar's power.

The official tally was 76.4 percent for Tomás and 23.6 percent for Delgado. The regime's secret police force, PIDE, harassed and attacked Delgado voters and supporters, and there were many reports of widespread electoral fraud.[2] For example, Salazar refused to allow opposition representatives to observe the counting of ballots.[1]

Many neutral observers believe that Delgado would have won in a landslide had Salazar allowed an honest election. Nevertheless, the results came as a shock to Salazar. Leaving nothing to chance, in 1959 he had the Constitution amended to transfer the presidential election to the National Assembly, which was a pliant tool of the regime. As a result, the 1958 election would be the only presidential election during the 48 years of the Second Portuguese Republic (in both of its incarnations as the Ditadura Nacional and the Estado Novo) in which an opposition candidate actually stayed in the race until election day. In previous years, whenever the opposition put forward any candidates at all, they were intimidated into withdrawing before the polls opened.

Universal suffrage was not reintroduced until after the Carnation Revolution and the return of democracy in 1974.

Official results

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CandidatePartyVotes%
Américo TomásNational Union765,08176.42
Humberto DelgadoIndependent236,05723.58
Total1,001,138100.00
Valid votes1,001,13899.97
Invalid/blank votes3400.03
Total votes1,001,478100.00
Registered voters/turnout1,294,77977.35
Source: Fórum História, De Almeida, Presidency[3]

Results by district

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District Tomás Delgado
Votes % Votes %
Aveiro 40,087 69.43% 17,651 30.57%
Beja 14,540 86.81% 2,209 13.19%
Braga 48,813 72.19% 18,809 27.81%
Bragança 19,534 75.93% 6,193 24.07%
Castelo Branco 30,783 93.13% 2,271 6.87%
Coimbra 33,944 71.35% 13,629 28.65%
Évora 13,101 77.22% 3,865 22.78%
Faro 22,179 86.69% 3,405 13.31%
Guarda 29,565 83.17% 5,983 16.83%
Leiria 33,284 76.14% 10,433 23.86%
Lisbon 110,939 71.90% 43,359 28.10%
Portalegre 16,542 81.27% 3,812 18.73%
Porto 69,174 66.10% 35,473 33.90%
Santarém 37,645 64.22% 20,974 35.78%
Setúbal 12,973 70.57% 5,409 29.43%
Viana do Castelo 20,797 73.91% 7,342 26.09%
Vila Real 26,899 85.62% 4,519 14.38%
Viseu 46,692 85.19% 8,117 14.81%
Angra do Heroísmo 11,255 99.72% 32 0.28%
Funchal 16,024 85.59% 2,698 14.41%
Ponta Delgada 13,796 95.25% 688 4.75%
Angola 22,295 67.71% 10,630 32.29%
Cape Verde 13,191 97.67% 314 2.33%
Guinea 1,624 79.07% 430 20.93%
Macau 1,507 100.00% 0 0.00%
Mozambique 13,385 61.29% 8,454 38.71%
Portuguese India 16,773 95.64% 765 4.36%
São Tomé and Príncipe 5,249 100.00% 0 0.00%
Timor 1,853 100.00% 0 0.00%
Source: Presidency[4][3]

References

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  1. ^ a b James Badcock (13 February 2015). "Did Portugal's dictator Salazar order killing of rival?". BBC News.
  2. ^ "Portugal > History and Events > Date Table > Second Republic".
  3. ^ a b "Eleição do Presidente da República". Museum of the Presidency of the Republic (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 June 2023.
  4. ^ "Eleição do Presidente da República". Museum of the Presidency of the Republic (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 June 2023.