2007 Lisbon local by-election

The 2007 Lisbon local by-election was held on 15 July 2007 to elect a new mayor and members of the Lisbon City Council, in order to complete the term started in 2005 following the collapse of Mayor Carmona Rodrigues' local government.

In the first, and still only, mayoral by-election in Lisbon's history, António Costa, by then Minister of Internal Administration under Prime Minister José Sócrates, was elected with almost 30 percent of the votes, electing six councillors, and would complete the term started in 2005 and to be finished by 2009.

The election resulted in a very fragmented local council, with former mayor Carmona Rodrigues Independent movement, Lisbon with Carmona, polling second with around 17 percent of the votes and electing 3 councillors. The Social Democratic Party (PSD) suffered a massive defeat, polling third with less than 16 percent of the votes, a loss of 27 percentage points compared with 2005, and electing only 3 councilors, a loss of five.

Another independent led by Helena Roseta, called Citizens for Lisbon, that congregated center-left to leftwing movements, gathered more than 10 percent of the votes and elected two councillors. The Unitary Democratic Coalition presented Ruben de Carvalho as their mayoral candidate and won 9 percent of the votes and retained the two seats from 2005. The Left Bloc presented José Sá Fernandes as candidate for Mayor, which was reelected as councillor. The CDS – People's Party (CDS–PP) was wiped out from Lisbon City Council.

Turnout was the lowest ever, with just 36.7 percent of voters casting a ballot.

Background
In the 2005 election, the Social Democratic Party led by Carmona Rodrigues, won a landslide victory with 42 percent of the votes and 8 councillors, defeating the Socialist Party candidate, Manuel Maria Carrilho, by a wide margin, which only gain 26.6 percent of the votes and 5 councillors. CDU won 2 councillors, while BE and CDS–PP gained just one.

By 2007, a crisis in the management of the city erupted because of urban development plans regarding a company called Bragaparques. These plans were highly controversial and led to an investigation by the Public Prosecution Office. Then PSD leader, Luís Marques Mendes withdrew his support from Carmona and asked PSD councillors to resign, which led to the fall of Carmona's local government and the calling of a by-election.

Electoral system
Each party or coalition must present a list of candidates. The lists are closed and the seats in each municipality are apportioned according to the D'Hondt method. Unlike in national legislative elections, independent lists are allowed to run.

Municipal Council
! rowspan="2" colspan=2 style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Parties ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|% ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±pp swing ! colspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Councillors ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Total ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|±
 * colspan="11"|
 * colspan="11"|
 * - style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
 * style="width: 9px" bgcolor=#FF66FF align="center" |
 * align=left|Socialist
 * 56,732||29.49||2.9||6||1
 * style="width: 9px" bgcolor=#CCCCCC align="center" |
 * align=left|Lisbon with Carmona
 * 31,990||16.63||N/A||3||N/A
 * 30,401||15.80||26.6||3||5
 * style="width: 9px" bgcolor=#00FF00 align="center" |
 * align=left|Citizens for Lisbon
 * 19,754||10.27||N/A||2||N/A
 * 18,163||9.44||2.0||2||0
 * 13,132||6.83||1.1||1||0
 * 7,148||3.72||2.2||0||1
 * 3,021||1.57||0.6||0||0
 * 1,599||0.83||0.5||0||0
 * 1,182||0.61||N/A||0||N/A
 * 1,019||0.53||N/A||0||N/A
 * 730||0.30||N/A||0||N/A
 * colspan=2 width="330" align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid
 * width="50" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|184,871
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|96.11
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.5
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|17
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0
 * colspan=2|Blank ballots
 * 4,622||2.40||0.5||colspan=3 rowspan=4|
 * colspan=2|Invalid ballots
 * 2,861||1.49||0.2
 * colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total
 * width="50" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|192,354
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|
 * colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout
 * 524,140||36.70||16.0
 * colspan=11 align=left | Source: Lisbon 2007 election results
 * }
 * 730||0.30||N/A||0||N/A
 * colspan=2 width="330" align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid
 * width="50" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|184,871
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|96.11
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.5
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|17
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0
 * colspan=2|Blank ballots
 * 4,622||2.40||0.5||colspan=3 rowspan=4|
 * colspan=2|Invalid ballots
 * 2,861||1.49||0.2
 * colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total
 * width="50" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|192,354
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|
 * colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout
 * 524,140||36.70||16.0
 * colspan=11 align=left | Source: Lisbon 2007 election results
 * }
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|
 * colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout
 * 524,140||36.70||16.0
 * colspan=11 align=left | Source: Lisbon 2007 election results
 * }
 * colspan=11 align=left | Source: Lisbon 2007 election results
 * }