Cavaco Silva became the first Prime Minister since Hintze Ribeiro, in 1904, to lead a party into three successive democratic election victories.

The Socialist Party, at the time led by Jorge Sampaio, the future President of Portugal, increased its share by 7 percentage points and gained 12 MPs, a gain of 16 if compared with 1987 with the new seat distribution, but did not manage to avoid the absolute majority of the Social Democrats.

In the first legislative election after the fall of the Eastern Bloc, the communist dominated Democratic Unity Coalition lost much of its electoral influence, losing almost 10 MPs and 4 points of the votes, but were able to hold on to the district of Beja by a slight margin over the PSD.

On the right, the CDS could not recover its past influence, mainly to the effect of tactical voting for the Social Democratic Party by right-wing voters, increasing its parliamentary group by only 1 MP.

Then party leader, Vítor Constâncio was facing pressures because of his strategy, with interferences also from President Mário Soares, and, adding to this, his difficulty in finding a strong candidate for Lisbon to contest the 1989 local elections.

[5] Because of these pressures, Constâncio resign in late 1988 and a party congress to elect a new leader was called for mid January 1989.

[7] The Democratic Renewal Party's results in the 1987 election were disappointing and António Ramalho Eanes resigned from the leadership.