There are 24 councils that have never changed their color. With 89 outgoing mayors, will this be the case?

What do Odivelas, Câmara de Lobos, and Arraiolos have in common? What unites Olhão, Boticas, and Seixal? These are some of the municipal councils that have never changed leadership in nearly 50 years of elections. In total, according to an analysis conducted by the Instituto +Liberdade after the last local elections, nine municipalities have always had Socialist leadership, as many have always been led by the PSD, and six more have remained in the hands of the PCP since their inception.

Before 2021, around 10% of councils remained loyal to the same party, but in those local elections, four switched between the PSD and PS and three escaped the PCP, becoming led by the Socialists. Now, two months before new local elections, there are still a total of 24 councils that have never changed party affiliation, but it's quite likely that this situation will change after October 12th. This is not only due to the strength that Chega has been gaining—a momentum that other then-new parties, such as BE (founded in 1999) and PAN (in 2009), never managed to capitalize on in the region—but also due to the fact that there are 89 mayors now finishing their third and final terms.

The Left Bloc, which had 19 seats in the Assembly between 2015 and 2022 (today it has only one female member, the leader of the Left Bloc, Mariana Mortágua), managed to elect only one mayor in 2001, but would lose Salvaterra de Magos in 2013, when Ana Cristina Ribeiro ( Anita ) reached the end of her possible terms. And it has never been able to repeat this.

Among the most recent parties, IL (2017) and Chega (2019), André Ventura's career and the rising vote he has achieved, with great expression in the south - it is worth remembering that he was the winning party in the districts of Faro, Beja, Setúbal and Portalegre, rising from 50 to the current 60 deputies in the Assembly of the Republic, making Chega the largest opposition party - lead us to believe that he may even win some chambers in the next local elections.

There are 89 mayors at the end of the line

ECO did the math on the parties that have councils whose mayors are reaching the end of their mandates permitted by law (three consecutive in the same municipality) and reveals that it is the PS that is most vulnerable, in a local election in which around 30% of the 308 mayors are at the limit.

Of the 89 who are completing the three-term cycle, more than half are Socialists, out of a total of 49 who have led since 2013. However, there are also 21 outgoing Social Democratic mayors and 12 Communists. There are also three from the CDS-PP and four outgoing independents among these nearly 90. And history has it that, in more than 40% of cases where a mayor is unable to run, the municipalities change party affiliation.

Although the volume seems more penalizing for the PS, in terms of proportion, it's the PCP that has the greatest cause for concern. The party led by Paulo Raimundo has a dozen outgoing mayors, out of a total of only 19 councils remaining in communist hands (in 2015, there were 24). In other words, it's quite likely that at least some of these six, which were always communist, will now no longer be. The CDS also has half of the six councils it leads alone with mayors facing term limits.

The Socialist Party, on the other hand, still holds 148 councils, and the PSD or coalitions led by it govern in 114 municipalities—including the nine unshakable strongholds for each party—so the loss of some of those with departing leaders is not as significant. Even so, 33% of Socialist municipalities are no longer eligible for election, and 18% of Social Democrat municipalities are no longer eligible for election.