The PSD leadership wants to include gender quotas in internal lists and an ethical arrangement for choosing candidates in the party’s statutes, along with the possibility of electronic voting in elections for the Social Democratic leader.
These are some of the proposals that the National Political Commission (CPN) will submit to the extraordinary Congress on November 25, and which also include the promise of the President of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, to stop the payment of voting fees in direct elections to make. .
Speaking to Lusa, PSD Secretary General Hugo Soares pointed out the guiding principles of the management’s proposal “enhance internal democracy, the Party’s openness to society, equality and equity, territorial cohesion and free organization”.
“This proposed legal revision aims to modernize the party and prepare it for the next fifty years. The more transparent party processes are, the more confidence voters have in the parties and this is the example that the PSD wants to set.”he claimed.
In the chapter on equality and equality, the CPN will propose to Congress – all proposals will have to be approved by a three-fifths majority – the obligation for lists for party bodies to have a minimum number of people of each gender, according to the criteria of the parity law applicable in national elections.
The PSD leadership also wants to establish a new national body, the Equality Ombudsman, to evaluate the promotion of policies aimed at equality and equality within the party.
If the CPN’s proposal is approved, the PSD will have a new body: a Social Council, which advises the party chairman and includes personalities from civil society.
As Luís Montenegro had already announced in May, the CPN will propose the creation of a “regulation on ethics and appointment of political positions”, on the basis of which the choice of PSD candidates for the various elections will be determined.
If this regulation is passed by Congress, it will then have to be worked on and approved by the National Council, but Hugo Soares believes it could be in force “in time for the European elections” in June next year.
As announced by the president of the PSD, it will “no longer be mandatory to have the quotas up to date in order to elect the president of the party”, which will expand the potential universe of voters.
The CPN also proposes the creation of thematic sections, which would allow a person to join the PSD based solely on their area of interest, albeit without the same rights to elect or be elected as those who register in the traditional territorial sections.
Asked whether it is about continuing the spirit of the National Strategic Council (CEN) promoted by the previous leadership of Rui Rio, Hugo Soares said that the purpose of this body “was to bring people and knowledge to society ”, while the goal now is to create a new form of militancy.
From the point of view of territorial cohesion, the leadership will propose that, in low-density areas (where the PSD does not have enough militants to create a section in light of the current statutes), municipalities could be grouped at intersections, “ making it the party where it was most difficult to stand up for itself.”
In line with what the PSD advocates for the country – studying and testing electronic voting in national elections – the CPN also wants to include this possibility in the statutes of the party’s internal elections.
“We will write its admissibility into the statutes and work to make this a reality soon”the Secretary General said, admitting that this could happen in time for next year’s elections.
The proposal, which must be approved “in the coming days” at a CPN meeting and then submitted to the National Jurisdiction Council, aims to be “as comprehensive as possible so that it is essentially the party’s proposal for this internal reform. “.
“We have conducted a very extensive consultation process with the structures”Hugo Soares explained, saying that many individual proposals from activists and even workers were accepted.
The extraordinary PSD congress will take place on November 25 at the municipal sports complex of the city of Almada (Setúbal district), and will include on the agenda the amendment of the party’s statutes and the analysis of the political situation.
According to the regulation, proposals for changes to the law “will only be admitted if they are signed by one hundred members of Congress, the National Council, the National Political Commission, ten district political committees or 1,500 party activists.”
Source: DN
