This calendar was at the time transmitted to journalists by the President of the Assembly of the Republic himself, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, who in successive leaders’ conferences has alerted the parties to the need to hold these elections, with a view to the proper functioning of the institutions.
The current legislature began on June 3, but to date, more than half a year later, deputies have still not voted on candidacies for members of the Council of State, judges of the Constitutional Court or for the new Ombudsman.
During the current legislature, the conference of leaders has already set other dates for holding elections to replace the three missing Constitutional Court judges and for the Ombudsman – a position that became vacant with the departure of Maria Lúcia Amaral to serve as Minister of Internal Administration.
However, after the dates for these elections were set by the conference of leaders, the parties with parliamentary representation ended up not presenting candidates for the open positions in these institutions.
This time, from a political point of view, the PSD considered that these electoral processes in parliament should only take place after the presidential elections, which have the first round scheduled for January 18th. A possible second round is on February 8th.
On the PS’s part, it will have highlighted the factor of not creating instability in the Constitutional Court before this sovereign body decides on its requests for preventive inspection of the decrees amending the nationality law and amending the Penal Code to provide for the possibility of loss of nationality.
Today, at the end of the morning, when a new postponement of these elections in parliament was already expected, the leader of the PS bench, Eurico Brilhante Dias, made the following statement to journalists: “Let’s wait for the right moment”.
“The PS is prepared to hold elections and negotiate, naturally, and to talk to the PSD about these topics when the PSD understands”he stated.
The election of the judges of the Constitutional Court and the Ombudsman is made by secret vote by the 230 deputies and requires approval by a qualified majority of two thirds.
In the current parliamentary scenario resulting from last May’s legislative elections, unlike previous legislatures, to reach a two-thirds majority, a political agreement between the two largest forces represented in the Assembly of the Republic, which traditionally were the PSD and PS, is no longer sufficient.
Now, to reach two thirds of votes in favor, the parties that support the Government, PSD and CDS, will have to reach an agreement with Chega, or with the PS, and then add another third group, the Liberal Initiative or Livre.
In the case of the five members of the Council of State, the advisory body of the President of the Republic, the results of the election are determined using the hondt method between the different competing lists.