1975 Portuguese Constituent Assembly election

Portugal voted on April 25, 1975, exactly one year after the Carnation Revolution, in its first free election since 1925. Turnout was a record 91.66 percent. What makes it essential is the result. In a year when the revolution could have tipped toward a one-party left, Mário Soares's Socialist Party won almost 38 percent and 116 seats, while the Communists managed a surprisingly low 12 percent. The vote handed moderate parties a democratic mandate in the middle of a revolutionary year, and because the body it elected was a Constituent Assembly, that mandate went straight into writing the country's new constitution.