Registered voters resident in Portugal 2023, by age
Lisbon counted the highest number of voters in Portugal, while France headed abroad
As of December 2022, there were over 10.8 million registered voters in the Portuguese electoral register, with the region of Lisbon gathering the highest number, namely 1.9 million. Porto followed in number of registered voters, while Portalegre’s electoral district was the one with the lowest sum. In total, there were almost 9.3 million voters residing in national territory. Registered women, namely 4.8 million in number, were slightly more abundant than men.Many Portuguese citizens residing abroad were registered in the Portuguese electoral register in the same year, with Europe aggregating most of them. France was the foreign country harboring the highest number, more than 396 thousand. Brazil was placed second, where almost 259 thousand Portuguese nationals resided, while the United Kingdom stayed at the 169.8 thousand benchmark.
After an unforeseen resignation, voters will be called to the ballot
In November 2023, the Prime Minister of Portugal, António Costa, presented his resignation, which led to the limitation of powers of the Socialist majority government that he had headed since March 2022. The Socialist Party (PS) was, after the general elections of that year, unrivaled in number of mandates, 120, while the Social Democratic Party (PSD), its rival par excellence, accounted for 77 deputies.Costa’s move also precipitated the scheduling of snap elections for March 2024 to elect a new Portuguese executive. In November 2023, PS gathered almost 24 percent of voting intentions, closely followed by the 22 percent intention gathered by PSD. The national conservative right-wing political party CHEGA attracted the vote of a prospective 14 percent of voters in Portugal. By February 2024, it was the Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition that gathered the most voting intention.