Eleven of the 14 presidential candidacies submitted to the Constitutional Court are in a position to be admitted, including that of musician Manuel João Vieira, while Joana Amaral Dias, José Cardoso and Ricardo Sousa were notified to correct irregularities.
According to a ruling published this Friday, December 19, the Constitutional Court ordered the representatives of these three candidates to be notified to remedy the irregularities identified within two days.
The candidacies of Gouveia e Melo, Marques Mendes, António Filipe, Catarina Martins, António José Seguro, Humberto Correia, André Pestana, Jorge Pinto, Cotrim Figueiredo, André Ventura and that of the painter and musician Manuel João Vieira are now “in a position to be accepted”.
The TC verified that these eleven candidacies submitted “regularly organized” processes, that the documents are authentic and demonstrate the eligibility of the respective candidates and that they contain a number of presentation declarations “between the minimum of 7,500 and the maximum of 15,000 voters, constitutionally and legally established”.
As for José Cardoso, he was notified to deliver the missing elements within two days, as only 7,265 of the 7,500 required signatures were considered regular.
Also missing are elements in Joana Amaral Dias’ case, namely the certificate of original Portuguese nationality and document proving that “she enjoys all civic and political rights”.
Furthermore, the number of declarations of proposition was well below the minimum required: Only 1575 declarations “regularly instructed, duly signed and with a certificate of registration of the subscriber in the voter registration”.
As for Ricardo Sousa, the legally required number of signatures is also not included in the process, “since only the declarations of 3,761 voting citizens are regularly documented.”
The presidential elections take place on January 18th.