Portugal’s opposition PSD wins early election

LISBON – Portugal’s centre-right Social Democrats (PSD) defeated the ruling Socialists in Sunday’s early election and will be able to form a majority government with the smaller conservative CDS-PP party, official results showed.

The PSD captured 38.6 percent of the vote against 28 percent for Prime Minister Jose Socrates’ Socialists, the interior ministry said after only the results of votes cast abroad were left to count.

That will give the PSD 105 seats in the 230-seat parliament compared to 73 for the Socialists.

The CDS-PP captured 11.7 percent of the vote giving it 24 seats, which gives it and the PSD together an absolute majority of 129 seats in the assembly.

The two parties have governed together in the past, most recently between 2002 and 2005.

The result of the votes cast abroad, which select four seats in the assembly, will be known on June 15. They have traditionally been split between the Socialists and the PSD.

The Communist-Green Party coalition captured 7.9 percent of the vote giving it 16 seats while the far-left Left Bloc, the only other force to win representation in parliament, captured 5.2 percent of the vote and eight seats.

The abstention rate was 41.1 percent, above the record level of 40.3 percent of the last general election in September 2009.