Costa indicates that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Santos Silva were elected by emigration

The Prime Minister stressed this Wednesday that two leading figures of the Portuguese State, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and the President of the Parliament, Augusto Santos Silva, were elected by the Portuguese communities abroad.

António Costa mentioned this at a dinner at the Associação da Comunidade Portuguesa in Pretoria, where he was with the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and who completed the Portugal Day celebration program in South Africa, which started at the Cape Town Fair on Monday, and also visited Johannesburg.

In his speech, as before in Johannesburg, the Executive Leader reiterated the measures taken by their governments since November 2015. Speaking about the expansion of the emigration electoral universe, the Prime Minister then mentioned Marcelo Rebela de Souza and Augusto Santos Silva, the latter, a PS MP from the Fora da Europa circle, who was later elected President of the Assembly of the Republic.

António Costa said the Assembly of the Republic took an important step when it changed voter registration to automatic, which increased the number of previously unregistered national voters by about two million.

Addressing the emigrants, he urged them to exercise their right to vote in elections in Portugal. And he gave an example of the possible beneficial consequences of voting.

“For the first time, the second figure of the state, the President of the Assembly of the Republic, is precisely the deputy elected in the circle in which you vote. The President of the Republic, the first figure of the State, has been elected with your vote, as well as the President of the Assembly of the Republic. It also shows the growing importance that the Portuguese communities have,” he said.

The Prime Minister mentioned again that his government is investing in the modernization of consular services and that “today, in commemoration of Portugal Day, a virtual consulate has been launched. It was originally scheduled for next Saturday, June 10, but was rescheduled.

Together with his Ministers of Foreign Affairs João Gomes Cravinho and Defense Helena Carreiras and Secretary of State for Communities Paulo Cafofo, listening to him speak, the chief executive said that the Portuguese community in South Africa is the largest outside of the Portuguese-speaking countries. You didn’t mention the case of France here.

“Everywhere we have more than two million Portuguese, and if we take into account the descendants of the Portuguese, then there will be about six million. Portugal – more than 10 million,” he stressed.

In this context, he referred to a change in the law on citizenship, which “allowed not only the children of emigrants, but also grandchildren (in the future great-grandchildren) to acquire Portuguese citizenship.”

“Portugal is passed down from generation to generation. This is a chain that we must maintain and strengthen,” he added.

The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, José Nunez da Fonseca, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Navy, Admiral Enrique Gouveia e Melo, attended both this dinner and the gala dinner in Johannesburg.

Parliament was represented by the MPs Carlos Pereira (PS), Malo de Abreu (PSD), Rui Paulo Souza (Chega), Carlos Guimarães Pinto (Liberal Initiative) and João Dias (PCP).

The current model of a double celebration on June 10 in Portugal and abroad was launched by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in the year of his inauguration in 2016, together with Prime Minister António Costa.

This time, unlike what has happened in previous years, the June 10 celebration began abroad, five days before the official date, and will end in Portugal, in Peso da Régua, Vila Real district, where the ceremony will take place. . , Military June 10th.