José Pedro Aguiar-Branco is the new President of Parliament. The Social Democrat won 160 votes in the fourth vote this Wednesday. The new president will replace socialist Augusto Santos Silva.
The results received a standing ovation from the SDP and SDS-NP, most of the sitting PS MPs and some IL MPs. Before delivering his speech, the new Speaker of Parliament greeted parliamentary leaders from all benches.
In the same elections, Chegi MP Rui Paulo Sousa stood, receiving 50 votes, with 18 blank votes still registered, in a vote in which 228 of the 230 MPs took part.
First performance
Breaking the institutional impasse, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco called on “all parliamentary groups to rethink the election of the President of the Assembly of the Republic (AR) for the sake of democracy” and gave the first clues on how he intends to implement this. his mandate.
“You don’t elect the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan so that he more or less likes what is said at the plenary session. (…) You do not elect the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan in order to debate,” he said. “The work of parliament does not have to be turned into a television program,” he added.
By taking on the duties of President of Parliament, the Social Democrat assumes the “high responsibility” of the position, believing that “the voice of every Portuguese must deserve equal respect from all citizens”, especially from the deputies.
“I believe that for representative democracy to prevail, it is important that the political actions of elected supporters and leadership by example are carried out in an impeccable manner in terms of serving the public cause,” he added.
Aguiar-Branco accepts the “demands of impartiality, equidistance, rigor” that everyone expects of him, understanding the nature of the role he takes on.
“If it is true that the rules apply to 230 deputies, then the loyalty of the President of the Assembly of the Republic extends to all 229 deputies. If we are unable to understand each other in the House of Democracy, what example are we setting?” abroad,” he asked, receiving a lot of applause at that moment.
The new chairman of the parliament hopes that the collegium of the Assembly of the republic, which “will be held today [esta quarta-feira] the elected one is able to unite what ideologies divide” and that “politics does not divide what the voters in this chamber wanted to unite.”
“The Portuguese chose us to be here for the next four years. We have to justify it,” he said.