Former Socialist MP and former Secretary of State for Equality and Migration, Isabel Almeida Rodrigues, has been elected President of the Commission for Equality and Against Racial Discrimination (CICDR), an organisation that now operates within the Assembly of the Republic.
The election of Isabel Rodrigues, nominated by the Socialist Party and approved on June 19 by the President of the Assembly of the Republic after receiving 145 votes in favor, 68 in favor and 10 in favor, was published this Friday in the Diário da República.
The fact that the person who will chair the CICDR has only now been chosen has left the commission inactive for more than six months following the fall of the previous Socialist government and the subsequent legislative elections in March 2024.
The CICDR was an organization that initially operated under the auspices of the High Commission for Migration (ACM), which was dissolved with the creation of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) following the closure of the Foreigners and Borders (SEF) organization.
The then government’s option was to autonomate the CICDR, leaving the body to function under the leadership of the Assembly of the Republic, which is responsible for electing the body’s president, a decision approved in November 2023.
In January this year, the President of the Republic announced the creation of the CICDR, warning that the body’s autonomy would “only partially respond” to some requests, “in particular from Roma communities.”