ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to examine the evolution of Portuguese voting behavior in order to determine, first, if there is any correlation between voting for the various parties on the spectrum and socioeconomic cleavages and, second, to see if the patterns observed are stable over time. In Portugal's first free election under conditions of universal suffrage, the electorate voted in some clear and well-defined patterns of party support which correlate extremely well with broad social forces and regional dichotomies. The election of a constituent assembly on April 25, 1975 was the first election held under the conditions of universal suffrage in Portuguese history, and, perhaps, the country's first truly free election ever. A correlation between socioeconomic cleavages and voting behavior is found to exist not because voters themselves are consciously making meansends, instrumental calculations, but, rather, because parties are actively mobilizing voters along cleavage lines.
