2025 Sintra local election

The 2025 'Sintra local election' was held on 12 October 2025 to elect the members for Sintra City Council, Sintra Municipal Assembly and the city's 15 parish assemblies.
Incumbent Mayor Basílio Horta, from the Socialist Party, was ineligible for a fourth term. Former Minister of Labour Ana Mendes Godinho was chosen as the candidate of the PS, in a coalition with LIVRE and supported by Volt Portugal, while former Deputy Mayor Marco Almeida ran for the third time, this time with the support of the Social Democratic Party, the Liberal Initiative and People Animals Nature. Meanwhile, Chega presented the leader of Chega Youth, Rita Matias, as its candidate.
CDS – People's Party broke away with the PSD, after disagreements regarding the lists and the inclusion of the Liberal Initiative, and will contest the election in a coalition with the People's Monarchist Party and the National Democratic Alternative, with local party councillor Maurício Rodrigues as mayoral candidate. The Unitary Democratic Coalition repeated their 2021 mayoral candidate and local party councillor Pedro Ventura.
In his 3rd try to reach the office of mayor of Sintra, Marco Almeida was successful, winning nearly 34% of the votes and electing 4 councillors. The PS/LIVRE coalition was close behind, gathering 32% of the voted and also electing the same number of councillors as the PSD led-coalition, four. Chega increased to 23% of the voted and elected 3 councillors. CDU lost its representation in Sintra municipal council for the first time in democracy. Turnout increased with 50% of all registered voters casting a ballot.

Background

Incumbent Mayor Basílio Horta, from the Socialist Party, won a third and final term, with 35.3% of the votes and electing five seats, losing its absolute majority. The coalition between PSD, CDS–PP and their allies, led by Ricardo Baptista Leite, got 27.5% of the votes and elected 4 seats.
Meanwhile, the Unitary Democratic Coalition, led by Pedro Ventura, managed to hold onto its single councillor, despite a small decrease to 9.0%, while Chega elected Nuno Afonso as city councillor and got 9.1% of the votes. Nuno Afonso would go on to leave Chega in January 2023 and remained as an Independent councillor.

Electoral system

Each party or coalition must present a list of candidates. The winner of the most voted list for the municipal council is automatically elected mayor, similar to first-past-the-post. The lists are closed and the seats in each municipality are apportioned according to the D'Hondt method. Unlike in national legislative elections, independent lists are allowed to run.

Results

Municipal Council

! rowspan="2" colspan=2 style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Parties
! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes
! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%
! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±pp swing
! colspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Councillors
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Total
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|±

Municipal Assembly

! rowspan="2" colspan=2 style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Parties
! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes
! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%
! rowspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|±pp swing
! colspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Seats
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|Total
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align="center"|±

Parish Assemblies