The official result of the regional legislative elections in the Azores was published this Monday in the newspaper Diário da República, confirming the election of 57 deputies, of which 26 were from the PSD/CDU-PP/PPM coalition, which won the electoral law without an absolute majority.
According to the National Electoral Commission (CNE) map of the final results of the February 4 elections, abstentions amounted to 49.70%.
Among the 57 mandates that were to be awarded, the coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) received a majority with 26 deputies, the Socialist Party (PS) with 23, Cega (Switzerland) with five and the Bloc de Esquerda (BE). The Liberal Initiative (IL) and People-Animals-Nature (PAN) each elected one deputy.
Of the 229,909 voters now considered registered (the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Affairs counted 229,830 two weeks before the vote), there were 115,655 voters (50.30%).
However, according to the CNE document, among the voters there were 111,726 valid votes (96.60%), 2,522 white votes (2.18%) and 1,407 invalid votes (1.22%).
The PSD/CDU-PP/PPM coalition received 48,672 legally cast votes (43.56%), while the PS received a total of 41,538 (37.18%).
Chega had 10,627 votes (9.51%), BE 2936 (2.63%), IL 2482 (2.22%) and PAN 1907 (1.71%).
The remaining competing political forces failed to elect deputies to the Azores parliament: the CDU coalition – the Unitary Democratic Coalition formed by the PCP and the PEV (1821 votes, 1.63%), Livre (735 votes, 0.66%), Juntos Pelo Povo (626 votes) . votes, 0.56%), the National Democratic Alternative (378 votes, 0.34%) and the Alternative 21 coalition, consisting of the MPT – Partido da Terra e Aliança, which had four votes in Santa Maria (0.16 % in the island circle).
The distribution of 57 seats recorded in the final results is the same as in the overall preliminary results calculated on election day.
Most candidates competed in 10 constituencies (one for each island and compensation circle), with the exception of IL (eight circles), JPP (six) and the MPT/Alliance coalition (one after lists were rejected in the remaining circles).
According to Article 81, paragraph 1, of the Political-Administrative Statute of the Azores, “the President of the Regional Government is appointed by the representative of the Republic, taking into account the results of the elections to the Legislative Assembly, after consultation with the political parties represented in it.”
The Chief Executive will take office before the Legislative Assembly.
The representative of the Republic of the Azores, Pedro Catarino, plans to listen to the views of the political parties represented in this hemisphere on February 19 and 20.
In the 2020 elections, in which the PS won but lost its absolute majority after two decades, the SDP, SDS-PP and PPM, who then ran separately, also managed to elect 26 deputies (SDS 21, SDS-NP three and PPM two) and eventually formed a government by entering into parliamentary protection agreements with Chega and IL.
In November, abstentions by Chega and PAN, and votes against PS, IL and BE led to the rejection of the Azores budget for that year, and the following month, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, announced the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly and the planning of elections.
On the 4th, Chega more than doubled the number of deputies – from two to five, and IL retained the seat it won for the first time in 2020.
On the left, PS won 23 seats, two fewer than in the last regional mandates, while BE lost one of its two parliamentarians.
PAN again won a seat in the regional parliament.
The current president of the regional government and leader of the right-wing coalition, Jose Manuel Bolheiro (PSD), has said that he will rule with a relative majority for four years.
Last week the PS announced it would vote against the Regional Government Program and Chega said it could make the document viable if it was part of the executive and if the Azorean leaders of the two minority parties in the coalition, CDS and PPM, were left out.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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