2016 Azorean regional election

The 2016 Azorean regional election (Eleições regionais dos Açores de 2016) was on October 16 of the same year. In this election, the incumbent president of the regional government, led by the Socialist Vasco Cordeiro, was seeking a second term.

In this election, the PS maintained their absolute majority but lost one seat and lost 2.6 percent of the vote compared to 2012. The Social Democrats also lost one seat although their vote share fall was lower than the Socialists. The big winner was the People's Party which gain 7 percent of the vote and gained one seat compared to 2012. The Left Bloc also won one more seat compared to last time while the CDU maintained their only seat but at the same time, gained in share of the vote and was the most voted party in the island of Flores. The PPM also maintained their seat in the island of Corvo.

Turnout in this election was the lowest ever, as only 40.84 percent of the electorate cast a ballot.

Social Democratic Party
Following the defeat of the PSD in the 2012 regional election, then party leader Berta Cabral resigned and a leadership ballot was called for 18 December 2012. Only one candidate was on the ballot: Duarte Freitas. Freitas was easily elected leader with almost 93 percent of the votes:

! align="center" colspan=2 style="width: 60px"|Candidate ! align="center" style="width: 50px"|Votes ! align="center" style="width: 50px"|%
 * - style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
 * bgcolor=orange|
 * align=left | Duarte Freitas
 * align=right | 1,401
 * align=right | 92.6
 * colspan=2 align=left | Blank/Invalid ballots
 * align=right | 112
 * align=right | 7.4
 * - style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" |  Turnout
 * align=right | 1,513
 * align=right | –
 * colspan="4" align=left|Source:
 * }
 * align=right | –
 * colspan="4" align=left|Source:
 * }
 * }

Electoral system
The Azores regional parliament elects 57 members through a proportional system in which the 9 islands elect a number of MPs proportional to the number of registered voters. MPs are allocated by using the D'Hondt method. 5 members are also elected for a Compensation constituency.

Current parties in parliament
The parties that up to date of election were represented in the Assembly and their leaders, are:

Opinion Polling
Poll results are listed in the table below in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed in bold, and the background shaded in the leading party's colour. In the instance that there is a tie, then no figure is shaded but both are displayed in bold. The lead column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the two parties with the highest figures. Poll results use the date the survey's fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication.

Vote

 * Color key:

Voter turnout
The table below shows voter turnout throughout election day.

Results
! 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="5" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|MPs ! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" |MPs %/ votes % ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:center;"|2012 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:center;"|2016 ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|± ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|% ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±
 * colspan=11| Portugal Azores Parliament 2019.svg
 * colspan=11| Portugal Azores Parliament 2019.svg
 * - style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
 * 43,274||46.43||2.6||31||30||1||52.63||1.8||1.13
 * 28,793||30.90||2.1||20||19||1||33.33||1.8||1.08
 * 6,674||7.16||1.6||3||4||1||7.02||1.8||0.98
 * 3,414||3.66||1.4||1||2||1||3.51||1.8||0.96
 * 2,437||2.61||0.7||1||1||0||1.75||0.0||0.67
 * 1,342||1.44||0.8||0||0||0||0.00||0.0||0.0
 * 866||0.93||0.8||1||1||0||1.75||0.0||1.88
 * 451||0.48||N/A||N/A||0||N/A||0.00||N/A||0.0
 * 343||0.37||0.4||0||0||0||0.00||0.0||0.0
 * 299||0.32||0.0||0||0||0||0.00||0.0||0.0
 * style="width:10px; background:#00CD8C; text-align:center;"|
 * style="text-align:left;" |FREE/Time to move Forward
 * 227||0.24||N/A||N/A||0||N/A||0.00||N/A||0.0
 * 83||0.09||N/A||N/A||0||N/A||0.00||N/A||0.0
 * 67||0.07||N/A||N/A||0||N/A||0.00||N/A||0.0
 * colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid
 * width="50" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|88,270
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|94.69
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|'''0.8
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|57
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|57
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.0
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|—
 * colspan=2|Blank ballots
 * 2,697||2.90||0.3||colspan=6 rowspan=4|
 * colspan=2|Invalid ballots
 * 2,227||2.40||1.1
 * colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total
 * width="50" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|93,194
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|
 * colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout
 * 228,162||40.85||7.0
 * colspan=11 align=left| Portuguese Communist Party (1 MPs) and "The Greens" (0 MPs) ran in coalition.
 * colspan=11 align=left | Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
 * }
 * 67||0.07||N/A||N/A||0||N/A||0.00||N/A||0.0
 * colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid
 * width="50" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|88,270
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|94.69
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|'''0.8
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|57
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|57
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|0.0
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|—
 * colspan=2|Blank ballots
 * 2,697||2.90||0.3||colspan=6 rowspan=4|
 * colspan=2|Invalid ballots
 * 2,227||2.40||1.1
 * colspan=2 align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total
 * width="50" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|93,194
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
 * width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|
 * colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout
 * 228,162||40.85||7.0
 * colspan=11 align=left| Portuguese Communist Party (1 MPs) and "The Greens" (0 MPs) ran in coalition.
 * colspan=11 align=left | Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
 * }
 * colspan=2|Registered voters/turnout
 * 228,162||40.85||7.0
 * colspan=11 align=left| Portuguese Communist Party (1 MPs) and "The Greens" (0 MPs) ran in coalition.
 * colspan=11 align=left | Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
 * }
 * colspan=11 align=left | Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições
 * }
 * }

Distribution by constituency
!rowspan=2|Constituency!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S!!%!!S !rowspan=2|Total S !colspan=2 | PS !colspan=2 | PSD !colspan=2 | CDS-PP !colspan=2 | BE !colspan=2 | CDU !colspan=2 | PPM
 * - class="unsortable"
 * - class="unsortable" style="text-align:center;"
 * style="text-align:left;" | Corvo
 * style="background:; color:white;"|36.7
 * 1
 * 26.2
 * colspan="2" bgcolor="#AAAAAA"|
 * 0.4
 * 1.6
 * 32.0
 * 1
 * 2
 * style="text-align:left;" | Faial
 * 32.6
 * 2
 * style="background:; color:white;"|41.2
 * 2
 * 6.5
 * 6.4
 * 4.6
 * 1.5
 * 4
 * style="text-align:left;" | Flores
 * 23.7
 * 1
 * 21.0
 * 1
 * 17.0
 * 1.3
 * style="background:red; color:white;"|32.5
 * 1
 * colspan="2" bgcolor="#AAAAAA"|
 * 3
 * style="text-align:left;" | Graciosa
 * style="background:; color:white;"|54.6
 * 2
 * 36.7
 * 1
 * 1.7
 * 1.2
 * 0.5
 * 0.5
 * 3
 * style="text-align:left;" | Pico
 * style="background:; color:white;"|39.5
 * 2
 * 37.8
 * 2
 * 14.1
 * 1.1
 * 1.5
 * 0.4
 * 4
 * style="text-align:left;" | Santa Maria
 * style="background:; color:white;"|50.3
 * 2
 * 29.1
 * 1
 * 1.8
 * 4.4
 * 8.3
 * 0.6
 * 3
 * style="text-align:left;" | São Jorge
 * style="background:; color:white;"|39.5
 * 1
 * 21.4
 * 1
 * 26.3
 * 1
 * 2.8
 * 3.0
 * 0.7
 * 3
 * style="text-align:left;" | São Miguel
 * style="background:; color:white;"|49.2
 * 12
 * 30.6
 * 7
 * 3.2
 * 4.2
 * 1
 * 1.5
 * 1.2
 * 20
 * style="text-align:left;" | Terceira
 * style="background:; color:white;"|49.0
 * 6
 * 28.8
 * 3
 * 10.1
 * 1
 * 3.1
 * 1.5
 * 0.3
 * 10
 * style="text-align:left;" | Compensation
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * 1
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * 1
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * 2
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * 1
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * 5
 * - class="unsortable" style="background:#E9E9E9"
 * style="text-align:left;" | Total
 * style="background:; color:white;"|46.4
 * 30
 * 30.9
 * 19
 * 7.2
 * 4
 * 3.7
 * 2
 * 2.6
 * 1
 * 0.9
 * 1
 * 57
 * colspan=14 style="text-align:left;" | Source: Azores Government
 * }
 * 3
 * 10.1
 * 1
 * 3.1
 * 1.5
 * 0.3
 * 10
 * style="text-align:left;" | Compensation
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * 1
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * 1
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * 2
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * 1
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * style="color:inherit;background:#AAAAAA"|
 * 5
 * - class="unsortable" style="background:#E9E9E9"
 * style="text-align:left;" | Total
 * style="background:; color:white;"|46.4
 * 30
 * 30.9
 * 19
 * 7.2
 * 4
 * 3.7
 * 2
 * 2.6
 * 1
 * 0.9
 * 1
 * 57
 * colspan=14 style="text-align:left;" | Source: Azores Government
 * }
 * 1
 * 0.9
 * 1
 * 57
 * colspan=14 style="text-align:left;" | Source: Azores Government
 * }
 * }