Election of the new president of the Assembly of the Republic postponed but there is a solution in sight

The PSD and PS leaders, Luís Montenegro and Pedro Nuno Santos, met this morning to try to break the impasse. The acting president of the AR, the communist António Filipe, revealed that the request for postponement until 3 pm came from the socialists, with the social democrats joining him.

“Candidates will be accepted until 2 pm and the plenary session will be scheduled for 3 pm”, António Filipe announced to journalists, clarifying that the vote will be repeated “ad eternum” until a candidate reaches at least 116 votes (absolute majority) .

The communist said he believes that this could finally be a successful election. However, when asked if he would allow further postponements, he replied: “What a remedy.”

Chega has already indicated that it will present deputy Rui Paulo Sousa to the vote. To RTP, the party’s parliamentary leader, Pedro Pinto, stated that the PSD will “suffer the consequences” of not having chosen Chega to dialogue with.

Initially, the deadline for submitting candidacies this Wednesday had been set for 11 am, with the election at 12 pm. First, the candidate presentation time was postponed 30 minutes; later, it ended up being postponed to 2 pm, with the vote rescheduled for 3 pm.

The two largest parties also changed the meeting time of their respective benches. The PS even suspended its meeting; As for the PSD, it postponed the time from 10:30 to 1:30 pm – that is, half an hour before the deadline for submitting applications.

According to information provided by “Expresso” and confirmed by JN, PSD and PS are working to find a solution that involves a rotating presidency of the AR between them, similar to what happens in the European Council.

If this scenario progresses, Social Democrats and Socialists will share the leadership of Parliament, each at a different time. From what JN found, those chosen to play the role of the State’s second figure will be the same ones that PSD and PS submitted to votes yesterday: José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, for the Social Democrats, and Francisco Assis, for the Socialists.