2023 Portuguese Socialist Party leadership election

The 2023 Portuguese Socialist Party leadership election was held on 15 and 16 December 2023. The leadership ballot was called after Prime Minister and Socialist Party Secretary-General António Costa resigned from office on 7 November 2023. The winner of this election led the Socialist Party into the 2024 legislative election.

The declared candidates included the former Infrastructure and Housing Minister Pedro Nuno Santos, who represented the leftist faction of the party and wants to build upon the legacy of António Costa, Internal Administration Minister José Luís Carneiro, who represented the moderate faction and a continuation of Costism, and Daniel Adrião, a longtime critic of Costa as Secretary-General, who represented a rupture.

Even with the candidates claiming the contrary, this leadership election was viewed as another ideological dispute to decide what direction the party and the country should take, similar to the leadership elections of 2014 between Costa and Seguro, of 2004 between José Sócrates and Manuel Alegre and of 1992 between António Guterres and Jorge Sampaio.

With a turnout rate of around 70%, Pedro Nuno Santos was elected as the new Secretary-General of the Socialist Party with almost 61% of the votes, against the 37% of José Luís Carneiro. Daniel Adrião polled below 1%.

Declined

 * Ana Catarina Mendes – Minister of Parliamentary Affairs (2022–2024)
 * António José Seguro – former Secretary-general of the Socialist Party (2011–2014)
 * Fernando Medina – Minister of Finance (2022–2024); former Mayor of Lisbon (2015–2021) (endorsed José Luís Carneiro)
 * Francisco Assis – former MEP of the Socialist Party (PS) (2004–2009; 2014–2019); former mayor of Amarante (1990–1995) (endorsed Pedro Nuno Santos)
 * Mariana Vieira da Silva – Minister of the Presidency (2019–2024)
 * Marta Temido – former Minister of Health (2018–2022); chair of the Lisbon Socialist Party (since 2023)
 * Mário Centeno – governor of the Bank of Portugal (since 2020); former President of the Eurogroup (2018–2020); former Minister of Finance (2015–2020)

Candidates' debates
José Luís Carneiro and Daniel Adrião proposed a series of debates between the candidates, but Pedro Nuno Santos refused to participate in any debate. Therefore, no debates between the candidates to the leadership were held.

PS voters
All voters

PS voters

Results by party federation
The following table shows a breakdown of the results of the election by party federation, which are mostly equal to the electoral circles.