Members elected to the legislature must take office between late March and early April.

The 230 deputies elected in the legislative elections on March 10 will take up their duties at the first plenary session of the XVI Legislative Assembly, which, if the usual dates are repeated, should take place between the end of the month and the beginning of April.

However, in the last legislative elections, held on 30 January 2022, the political transition process took much longer due to the repetition of elections in the European circle determined by the Constitutional Court, due to the mixing of valid votes with invalid votes in 151 polling stations.

In this case, the XV Legislature started almost two months after the legislative sessions on January 30, March 29, since the publication of the final results was postponed to March 26.

The XXIII Constitutional Government will take office the next day, exactly two months after the elections, and will take office on April 8, after evaluating its program.

The date of the first parliamentary session depends on various legislative deadlines, but in legislatures until 2022 it took between 15 and 19 days, corresponding to the first plenary session in the week of 25 to 29 March.

However, since the 29th is a public holiday (the Friday before Easter), the first plenary session of the 16th Legislative Assembly can only take place in the first week of April.

According to Article 111.º-A of the Law on Elections of the Assembly of the Republic, the total count of election results in each electoral district must be completed “by the 10th day after the elections.”

According to the CNE calendar map, precisely on the tenth day after today’s elections, March 20, the meetings for the collection and counting of votes of voters living abroad begin their work at 9:00, at a place determined by the election administration General Secretariat of the Ministry of the Interior.

Once the count is completed (it does not always end on the same day), the CNE has eight days from receiving the protocol of the general count in all electoral districts to prepare and publish in the Diário da República an official map with the results. elections. However, this last period is usually not exhausted.

Following the publication of the official map in the newspaper Diário da República, “the Assembly of the Republic shall meet independently on the third day after the tabulation of the general election results”, as provided for in Article 173 of the Constitution.

In 2019, the elections took place on October 6, the official results map was published on October 22, and the first plenary session took place on the 25th, 19 days after the legislative one.

In 2015, elections took place on October 4, the official map was published on October 20, and the first plenary session took place on the 23rd, also 19 days after the legislative ones.

In 2011, the elections took place on June 5, 2011, and the official result map was published on the 17th. Three days later (only 15 after the elections), on June 20, the first plenary session of the XII Legislative Assembly took place.

A week before the first session of the legislature, there is usually a conference of parliamentary leaders – to decide issues such as the distribution of seats in the plenary depending on the results – and a meeting of the standing committee, a body that meets outside normal plenary hours.

At the last conference of leaders, held at the end of February, a meeting of this body was scheduled for March 13 to discuss the planning of the 1st plenary session of the XVI Legislative Assembly.

At the first plenary session of each legislative body, according to parliamentary practice, the deputy from the largest party invites the President of the outgoing Assembly of the Republic – or the “deputy” from the same bench if he is not a deputy or even the oldest deputy, as Alberto Martins managed in 2015 , – to preside over the meeting as interim president until new elections take place on the same day.