The elections resulted in the re-election of Aníbal Cavaco Silva to a second term as President of Portugal.

Cavaco Silva won by a landslide winning all 18 districts, both Autonomous regions of Azores and Madeira and 292 municipalities of a total of 308.

During the 2006 presidential elections, former Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva, the only candidate of the center-right had won the ballot in the first round with 50.5 percent of the votes cast.

This historic victory of a conservative candidate, the first after the Carnation Revolution, inaugurated a period of "political cohabitation" with Socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates.

The general elections of September 2009 confirmed this situation, and brought the PS once again to power, however depriving them of an absolute majority.