The National Councils of the SDP and SDS-NP will advance the process of compiling lists of deputies on Monday

The national councils of the SDP and SDS-PP will meet on Monday, but if the Social Democrats have the approval of lists of parliamentary candidates on their agenda, the Christian Democrats have only the same “criteria” on their agenda.

Both meetings will begin at 21:00 in Lisbon, with the meeting of the highest body of the PSD at the hotel and the PSD-NP at the national headquarters.

The agenda of the meeting of Christian Democrats is “to present, discuss and vote on the criteria for the lists of parliamentary candidates for the legislative elections on March 10, which will be included in the lists of the Democratic Alliance (AD),” he said. The coalition has already approved and submitted the SDP and the PPM.

Luse CDS-PP President Nuno Melo said it had not yet been decided whether the National Council would vote on all the names on Monday.

The PSD National Council will begin by approving the party’s budget for 2024 and the distribution of revenues between the various bodies, and then, as provided for in the party’s statutes, will approve the appointment of the PSD candidate for the post of Prime Minister – President Luis Montenegro – and the proposal of the National Political Commission (CPN) ) according to the list of candidates for legislative elections.

On January 4, the highest authorities of the two parties already met to unanimously approve the AD coalition, which will also be valid for the European elections in June and which was already publicly presented in the initiative in Porto last Sunday.

For now, it has only been confirmed that the CDS-PP will have two “clearly eligible” seats on the lists of Lisbon and Porto (to be occupied by Paulo Nuncio and Nuno Melo respectively), the 16th seat in each of these constituencies. , in addition to 10th place on the list for Aveiro and 11th for Braga, while 19th place in the capital is assigned to PPM.

In the SDP this week, inter-constituency meetings were held to legally nominate candidates for the leadership post, without any confirmation from the CPN to date.

On Monday, before the evening meeting of the National Council, the Standing Commission (a limited governing body) and the PSD National Political Commission will also meet during the day to complete the process.

Although the bylaws approved at the last Congress on November 25 have not yet taken effect, management approved a resolution that specifies that lists submitted to the National Council must conform to the “spirit and general principles” of the new rules that will govern PSD.

The new charter defines the competence of the National Political Commission “to approve the criteria for compiling lists of deputies of the Assembly of the Republic, to elect the heads of the lists in each circle, and in circles with more than two deputies – up to two-thirds of the candidates, proposing a corresponding order to the National Council.”

Until now, the SDP charter had not defined any restrictions on the selection of candidates by the CPN, and this decision was left to the discretion of each leadership, which in practice could impose restrictions only on the heads of the list or on all candidates.

There are PSD deputies who already know that they will not return to the party lists: former board member of the previous leader of Rui Rio António Malo de Abreu announced on Wednesday that he is leaving the PSD and the College of Deputies, becoming an unregistered deputy, but there are others who have also said goodbye to parliament in a more peaceful way.

Adão Silva, a former leader of the parliament in Rio and who was vice-president of that legislature’s Assembly of the Republic, announced in December at a collegium meeting that he was resigning, while António Topa Gomes, who headed Aveiro’s list in 2022, informed the leadership in November that unavailability of new lists.

The head of Setúbal’s PSD list in the last two elections, Nuno Carvalho, announced this week in plenary that “by his own choice” he will no longer be an MP.

The group’s vice-president Catarina Rocha Ferreira, elected by Porto, also said goodbye this week on social networks, thanking the current and former president of the party (Luis Montenegro and Rui Rio), while another elected by Porto, Marcia Passosa, resigned for professional reasons in early January.