Polling stations for regional elections in Madeira have already opened.

Polling stations for Madeira’s early regional legislative elections opened this Sunday in the archipelago at 8 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m.

According to the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI), there are 254,522 registered voters, of which 249,075 on the island of Madeira and 5,447 on the island of Porto Santo.

For the September 2023 elections, there are a further 645 registered voters.

In the September 24 elections, 46.65% abstained, with 135,446 voters (53.35%) voting.

The highest number of abstentions since 1976, the year of the first elections to the Legislative Assembly of Madeira, was recorded in 2015, when 50.42% of the 256,755 registered voters did not turn out to vote.

In this Sunday’s elections, 14 candidates are vying for 47 seats in the regional parliament in one circle: ADN, BE, PS, Livre, IL, RIR, CDU (PCP/PEV), Chega, CDS-PP, MPT, PSD, PAN, PTP and JPP.

In the regional legislatures, the representative of the Republic (the position held by Ireneu Barreto) proposes to the political force to form a government based on the results (which must be published) after consultation with the parties that have seats in parliament in the current legislature.

In September 2023, the PSD/CDU-PP coalition won without an absolute majority and elected 23 deputies. The PS received 11 mandates, the JPP five, Cega four, and the CDU, IL, PAN (which signed an agreement on parliamentary influence with the Social Democrats) and BE received one mandate each.

The early elections will take place eight months after the last regional legislative elections, after the President of the Republic dissolved the Parliament of Madeira following the political crisis provoked in January, when the leader of the regional government (PSD/CDU-PP), Miguel Albuquerque, was named as a defendant in the process, in during which suspicions of corruption are being investigated.