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

8 June 1958
Turnout	77.35% ( 0.18pp)
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." 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. For example, Salazar refused to allow opposition representatives to observe the counting of ballots.

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

Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Américo Tomás	National Union	765,081	76.42
	Humberto Delgado	Independent	236,057	23.58
Total			1,001,138	100.00
Valid votes			1,001,138	99.97
Invalid/blank votes			340	0.03
Total votes			1,001,478	100.00
Registered voters/turnout			1,294,779	77.35
Source: Fórum História, De Almeida, Presidency

Results by district

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