José Pedro Aguiar Branco, named by the PSD, is the new President of the Assembly of the Republic, having been elected with 160 votes in favor, against 50 votes for Rui Paulo Sousa (Chega).
There were also 18 blank votes and zero invalid votes out of a total of 228 voters.
Two deputies did not vote.
The new president of the AR, in his first speech, begins by congratulating António Filipe (PCP) for his “high sense of State with which he conducted the work” as interim president.
Aguiar-Branco also said that he learned yesterday, following the successive attempts at the election for the presidency of the Assembly of the Republic, that “one should not give up on democracy”, stating that he “does not give up” and that he asks the deputies to “rethink the way in which the AR regiment is looked at “so that what happened yesterday does not happen again”.
“If it is true that the rules apply to 230 deputies, the loyalty of the president of the AR applies to all 229. If we are not able to guarantee this at home, what example do we set abroad?”, he asked.
Continuing his speech, the now President of the Assembly recalls that the Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry are an “important part” of the work in the AR, but they are not everything. “Parliament is much more than that, it is a space for debates in the plenary, for important decisions that are often unknown, but that change people’s lives.”
In this sense, Aguiar-Branco argues that parliamentary work should not be transformed into a “television spectacle” and, on the 50th anniversary of April 25th, it is necessary to “open parliament” and show “how it is done”.
In conclusion, quoting lawyer Miguel Veiga, Aguiar-Branco stated that “democracy is magnificently fragile, let us take care of it with the devotion that its magnificence and fragility require”.
