1958 Portuguese presidential election

Presidential elections were held in Portugal on 8 June 1958, during the authoritarian Estado Novo regime led by Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar.

Incumbent President Francisco Craveiro Lopes had clashed with Salazar and did not seek another term, either as candidate of the regime or for the opposition, which deemed the incumbent president capable of winning the race. In Craveiro Lopes' place, the National Union, the sole legal political party, levied naval minister Américo Thomaz, a conservative. 

The democratic opposition backed General Humberto Delgado, who ran as an independent in an attempt to challenge the regime. When asked if he would retain Salazar if elected, Delgado famously replied, "Obviously, I'll sack him." Delgado knew that under Portugal's corporatist constitution, the president still had the right to dismiss the prime minister, which was effectively the only check on Salazar's power.

The official tally was 76.4 percent for Thomaz and about 24 percent for Delgado. The regime's secret police force, PIDE, harassed Delgado's supporters, and there were many reports of massive electoral fraud. For example, Salazar refused to allow opposition representatives to observe the counting of ballots. Indeed, many neutral observers believe that Delgado would have won had the regime allowed an honest election.  

The results nevertheless shocked Salazar, and in 1959, he had the Constitution amended to transfer the presidential election to the National Assembly, which was a pliant tool of the regime. Universal suffrage was not reintroduced until after the Carnation Revolution in 1974.

Official Results
Summary of the 8 June 1958 Portuguese presidential election results
|-
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left colspan="2" rowspan="2"|Candidates 
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left rowspan="2"|Supporting parties 	
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right colspan="2"|First round
|-
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%
|-
|style="width: 10px" bgcolor=blue align="center" | 
|align=left|Americo Thomaz
|align=left|National Union
|align="right" |765,081
|align="right" |76.42
|-
|style="width: 8px" bgcolor=#777777 align="center" |
|align=left|Humberto Delgado
|align=left|Independent
|align="right" |236,057
|align="right" |23.58
|-
|colspan="3" align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total valid
|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|1,001,138
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|100.00
|-
|align=right colspan="3"|Blank ballots
|width="65" align="right" |
|width="40" align="right" |
|-
|align=right colspan="3" |Invalid ballots
|width="65" align="right"|
|width="40" align="right"|
|-
|colspan="3" align=left style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Total 
|width="65" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|1,001,138
|width="40" align="right" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|
|-
|colspan=5 align=left|Source: Fórum História
|}

References

Category:1958 elections in Europe
Category:1958 in Portugal
1958
Category:June 1958 events