The victory of incumbent president Jorge Sampaio was never in doubt and the turnout was therefore quite low (49.71 percent).

Again, the incumbent president was re-elected, like what happened with Mário Soares and Ramalho Eanes.

The Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers also presented its own candidate for the first time in its history, Garcia Pereira.

In order to do so it is necessary to gather between 7,500 and 15,000 signatures and submit them to the Portuguese Constitutional Court.

There were also four candidates rejected by the Portuguese Constitutional Court for not complying with the legal requirement of being proposed by 7500 voters: These four candidates were present in the draw of the ballot position, but did not appear in the final ballot.