On an election night marked by tension and relief only after the final votes were tallied, the PAN party managed to maintain its parliamentary representation for at least another term. Despite this, Inês de Sousa Real acknowledged that the results were “below expectations” as the party did not succeed in electing a parliamentary group.
“As the spokesperson for PAN and as its sole deputy, I am aware that this is not the result we would have liked. We would have preferred to elect a parliamentary group. It would be important not to be alone in parliament,” stated Sousa Real, who has held the party’s only seat in the Assembly of the Republic since 2022.
Nationally, PAN received 1.36% of the votes, totaling 80,850, down from 1.95% in 2024, reflecting a loss of about 37,700 votes, marking the party’s worst performance since gaining parliamentary representation. The only lower turnout was in the 2011 legislative elections when PAN debuted with 1.04% of the vote.
Despite retaining its mandate from Lisbon, as with all elections since 2015, the party saw a drop in this constituency: from 32,800 votes (2.49%) in 2024 to 23,300 (1.84%) this year.
The election night unfolded amid silence and apprehension at Hotel Lux Lisboa Park, where several dozen members and supporters watched the tallying process. Relief came just two minutes before midnight when Sousa Real’s election was confirmed after the counting of votes from the Avenidas Novas parish in Lisbon, the last to be tallied.
Inês de Sousa Real was the last deputy elected from the largest electoral circle in the country, Lisbon, preventing the CDU from electing its second deputy or the PS its 13th. The 23,369 votes for PAN in Lisbon (28% of the party’s national total) offered a 178-vote advantage over PS and 654 over CDU, as determined by the Hondt method, the equation used for mandate allocation.
In her closing speech of the evening, the PAN leader expressed her willingness to engage in dialogue with AD, the election winner, but emphasized the party would not compromise on its core causes. She also admitted the significant drop in votes necessitates internal reflection on communication shortcomings.
Nonetheless, the PAN leader reiterated—as she had previously when the party lost representation in Madeira—that the primary cause for the vote decline is strategic voting and short political cycles.
Pessoas-Animais-Natureza made its legislative debut in 2011 with 1.04% of the vote. It first secured a seat in 2015 with André Silva from Lisbon and achieved its best result in 2019, electing four deputies across Lisbon, Porto, and Setúbal circles. By 2022, it had dropped to 1.58% and reverted to a single deputy. In 2024, it rose to 1.95%, but once again only elected Inês de Sousa Real.
