Chega failed to elect for the third time Vice President of the Assembly of the Republic. Rui Paulo Sousa’s name was rejected, having received only 64 votes (with 137 blank votes), which means that, of the 77 PSD deputies, at most only 52 voted for Chega’s candidate. That is, at least a third of the deputies The Social Democrats did not heed the appeal of the parliamentary leader, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento.
Leaving the session room, the PSD parliamentary leader said that “the vote is free” and that “the sovereign deputies decided to reject” Chega’s candidate. Joaquim Miranda Sarmento does not understand the defeat of Rui Paulo Sousa as a personal defeat: “I did not go to voting. The deputy from Chega was not elected” and that the orientation given “was only for the fulfillment of a parliamentary practice with 40 years”.
Also at the end of today’s plenary session, Eurico Brilhante Dias, parliamentary leader of the PS, told journalists that “the decision of the PSD leadership, whose first head is Luís Montenegro, speaks well of what is coming from the right. There are no red lines with the extreme right”, lamenting “the support of a founding party of democracy for a candidate” of Chega. Brilhante Dias added that “a founding party was lost in the fight against the extreme rightand that the defense of democracy “was in charge of the PS, the parliamentary left and some PSD deputies who did not follow the voting guidelines.”
Even in plenary session, the president of Chega, André Ventura, considered this result as a “boycottand accused the PS parliamentary group of being responsible for rejecting Chega’s candidates. The parliamentary leader of the PS, Eurico Brilhante Dias then asked for the floor to underline that “there are values that the PS benches do not renounce.”
[Ouça aqui o Semáforo Político com Rui Paulo Sousa]
AR Vice President. “Basta has a new name”
Despite a new defeat, Chega does not seem to want to give up the election of a vice president and minutes after knowing the result, Rui Paulo Sousa told Rádio Observador that the party “considers presenting another candidate”, in this case the deputy Jorge Galveias .
The PSD had sent an email this morning to the deputies asking for the vote for the candidate presented by Chega. The position was agreed upon between the parliamentary leader, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, and the party’s president, Luís Montenegro. The PSD argues that parliamentary practice must be followed, despite the fact that in the first vote, even with Rui Rio, it contributed to the rejection of Diogo Pacheco Amorim and João Cotrim Figueiredo.
Miranda Sarmento, in agreement with Montenegro, asks PSD deputies to vote for Chega’s ‘vice’
Even before the start of the vote, in statements to journalists, André Ventura had said that the support of the PSD was “a sign of normalization”, also admitting contacts with the Liberal Initiative.
The PS already discussed the issue at the parliamentary group meeting this morning, with the leader of the caucus, Eurico Brilhante Dias admitting that he would vote against it, but in plenary, in response to the Liberal Initiative, he said that he had Voted for João Cotrim Figueiredo at the beginning of the legislature and challenged the Liberals to present a new candidate.
Source: Observadora
