Marcos Perestrello heads the special commission on Chegi’s actions against PR, which takes office today.

A special parliamentary commission to analyze the Chegi project, demanding that a case be opened against the president of the republic, will take office on Tuesday. It will be headed by the Vice-President of the Assembly of the Republic, Marcos Perestrello.

The inauguration will take place a day after Chega presented the project and the President of the Assembly of the Republic signed an order, to which the Lusa agency had access, in which he considers that “the current situation requires a particular urgency worthy of protection, which imposes the need for a rapid assessment of the initiative under consideration” .

The inauguration of the special parliamentary committee is scheduled for 2 pm on Tuesday, and a source in the office of José Pedro Aguiar-Branco confirmed to Lusa that the moment will be open to the media.

Responsibility for the chairmanship will be entrusted to the Vice-President of the Assembly of the Republic and PS deputy Marcos Perestrelo, with the commission having a maximum of two days from taking office to prepare its report.

The PSD nominated Hugo Carneiro, Regina Bastos and Pedro Neves de Souza, while the PS, in addition to Marcos Perestrello, will include Pedro Delgado Alves and Isabel Moreira in this commission.

Chega, the author of the initiative, will have president Andre Ventura and deputy Rui Paulo Souza.

PCP will be represented by António Filipe, BE by Fabian Figueiredo, Livre by Rui Tavares, PAN by Ines Sousa Real, IL by Mariana Leitão and CDS-PP by Paulo Nuncio.

The discussion draft presented by Chega on Monday in Parliament calls for the initiation of proceedings against the President of the Republic for the crimes of high treason, coercion of constitutional bodies and usurpation.

“Chega requests the Assembly of the Republic to initiate steps leading to the opening of its own case against His Excellency the President of the Republic for the crime of high treason, coercion of constitutional bodies and usurpation,” reads the proposal published by Breaked.

The initiative was announced on Tuesday by Andre Ventura following statements by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa about possible historical reparations to former colonies.

“We do this because we believe that the President of the Republic, the highest head and highest representative of the Portuguese state, betrayed his country by declaring that Portugal should begin the historic process of reparations and compensation to its former overseas provinces,” President Chegi said at a press conference at Chegi’s headquarters in Funchal, where he was at the start of the campaign for the early legislative elections in Madeira on 26 May.

When asked by reporters, Ventura admitted that PS and PSD “probably won’t” pursue the complaint: “It’s not really surprising, but we wanted to have a clear conscience that as history judges us all at this point, we were on a certain side of this process.”