The president of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva, requested this Wednesday a clarification in the electoral legislation so that “all doubts are dispelled” and defended an “electoral code” to standardize common procedures for the different elections.
In his speech at the inauguration ceremony for the members of the National Electoral Commission (CNE), Augusto Santos Silva highlighted the “laptop” on the side of parliament regarding the reform of the electoral system, showing confidence that “a fruitful job will be carried out throughout this legislature.”
“In the first place, within the scope of its competence to monitor and supervise the acts of the Government and the administration, carefully monitor the processes that are being carried out in the Electoral Administration of simplification, dematerialization and correction of this or that aspect,” he said.
According to the President of the Assembly of the Republic, “parliament is well aware that, in order to dispel all doubts, legislative intervention is necessary clarifying aspects that today are not yet fully crystallized in the field of electoral law for the Assembly of the Republic”.
Thirdly, to move as far as possible towards a true electoral code, that is, instead of having as many laws as there are elections, we can have, as regards the procedures common to the different elections, a common legislative body, a common diploma to foresee these common procedures and, therefore, standardize them, regardless of the most fundamental questions that arise in relation to the electoral system”, he requested.
For Augusto Santos Silva, this ceremony was the “due occasion” to defend these ideas, expressing, on behalf of parliament, “full confidence in the CNE in its powers and competencies, which are decisive for the quality of the electoral process.”
“And also to say, for our part, that the parliament, within the scope of its powers, will continue to seek to contribute on its part so that confidence in the electoral process is maintained and the electoral process in Portugal is better and better and more and, therefore, from there we can also do what we must do to encourage citizen participation in political life in this way, which is the noblest of all, which is the voter turnout”engaged.
The President of the Assembly of the Republic stressed that the country can count on the CNE in “two very important missions” that this body has always played.
The mission of guaranteeing total public confidence in the electoral process in Portugal, as has been our brand image since the first free elections for the Constituent Assembly in 1975 and, secondly, also the mission of the CNE, within the scope of its competences, will be to contribute to the incremental improvement of certain aspects, both those related to the information due to citizens and those related to the validation and vote counting procedures”, he praised.
Source: Observadora
