section_path: Results
section_name: Results
paragraph_text: Results
  
  In the second legislative election in just over a year, the Democratic Alliance (AD) was re-elected with a stronger mandate, gathering 31.8% of the votes and winning 91 seats. The Alliance won all districts in the North Region and gained several districts from the Socialists, like Coimbra, Castelo Branco, Santarém and Lisbon. Although the AD received a higher vote share and number of seats, it did not achieve a majority. To form a coalition government with the AD, the Liberal Initiative (IL)'s 9 seats would not be sufficient, so the AD will need to work with either the Socialist Party or Chega to form a coalition, or attempt another minority government.
  
  Chega (CH) improved on its 2024 result and became the second largest party in Parliament, the first time in democracy that neither PS nor PSD are one of the two largest parties, receiving 22.8% of the vote and 60 seats, with party leader André Ventura becoming leader of the opposition. The party received a plurality of votes in four mainland districts: Faro, Beja, Setúbal and Portalegre, plus, also in the overseas constituencies of Europe and Outside of Europe.
  
  The Socialist Party (PS) came third, also for the first time in democracy, receiving just 22.8% of the votes and 58 seats, making this one of the worst results in the party's 52-year history, as the party lost further ground compared with the 2024 election. On election night, leader Pedro Nuno Santos conceded defeat and announced his resignation as party leader, calling for a leadership ballot in which he would not be a candidate.
  
  The Liberal Initiative (IL) slightly increased its vote share to 5.4% and won nine seats, one more than in 2024. LIVRE was the only left-wing party to increase its vote share, receiving 4.1% and six seats, two more than in 2024. The Left Bloc (BE) received 2% of the vote and one seat, the party's worst performance, but party leader Mariana Mortágua did not resign.
  
  The Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU), composed of the Portuguese Communist Party and the Ecologist Party "The Greens", received 2.9% of the vote and just three seats, one less than the previous election, the worst result since the CDU alliance formed in 1987. The People Animals Nature (PAN) held onto its single seat, held by leader Inês Sousa Real, while the Madeira-based party, Together for the People (JPP), entered Parliament with one seat from the Madeira constituency.
  
  For the first time since Portuguese democracy was restored in 1974, the two largest parties combined received less than two thirds of the seats in Parliament. All right-leaning parties combined won two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. A two-thirds majority is required for changes to the constitution, and for appointments to public bodies including the Constitutional Court.