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PORTUGAL
Population
Total population in Portugal is 10,309,573 by 1st January 2017. 8.50% of the population is foreign born (Eurostat). The median age of Portuguese is 41.81 which is slightly more than the European average of 40.36 (UN Data).
Political Parties
The most recent parliamentary election was held in October 2015. The prominent parties, vote shares in this election and their orientations are as follows (Parlgov):
|
Party Name |
Vote Share |
Ideological Orientation |
|
Social Democratic Party |
39.84 |
Liberal |
|
Socialist Party |
33.57 |
Social democracy |
|
Bloc of the Left |
10.58 |
Communist/Socialist |
|
Unified Democratic Coalition |
8.56 |
Communist/Socialist |
|
Party for Animals and Nature |
1.44 |
Green/Ecologist |
|
Republican Democratic Party |
1.19 |
Conservative |
|
Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers / Reorganizative Movement of the Party of the Proletariat |
1.15 |
Communist/Socialist |
Electoral System
The system used in Portugal is Closed List PR based on d’Hondt method, in which parties make lists of candidates to be elected, and seats get distributed to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives (idea.int). The voter turnout in 2015 election was 55.84% (idea.int).
Quality of Democracy
Portugal is a parliamentary democracy. Quality of democracy score by Freedom House is 1 out of 7 where 1 is most free and 7 is least free. According to Transparency International, Portugal is ranked 29th least corrupted among 180 countries with a score of 63 out of 100.
Gender Equality
31% of the parliamentarians are women currently. The Electoral law promotes at least 33% representation of each sex in the party lists (idea.int).