The PSD National Council will meet in Braga on January 4 to approve the coalition with the CDS-PP and again on the 15th to approve the candidates for deputies, a source from the Social Democratic leadership told Lusa.
Next week’s National Council will take place on the first day of a new edition of “Sentir Portugal”, this time in Braga, an initiative in which the President of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, toured the different districts of mainland Portugal and the Autonomous Regions.
On December 21, the presidents of the PSD and CDS-PP, Luís Montenegro and Nuno Melo, announced that they would propose to the national bodies of their parties a pre-electoral coalition, the Democratic Alliance, for the March parliamentary elections and the European elections. elections in June, in which “independent personalities” will also participate.
“The presidents of the Social Democratic Party and the CDS-Partido Popular agreed on Thursday to propose to the national bodies of the respective parties the conclusion of a political agreement for the formation of the Democratic Alliance, a pre-electoral coalition with the horizon of the current political cycle, which includes the parliamentary elections and the 2024 European elections,” said a joint statement from the two parties.
In the press release, entitled “Constitution of the Democratic Alliance” (the name of the first coalitions concluded between PSD and CDS-PP in the 1980s, but which is contested by the PPM, which was also part of it at the time), states that this agreement is “in line with regional commitments for the elections in the autonomous regions of Madeira and the Azores in 2023 and 2024 respectively, and with local agreements for the local elections in 2025”.
The terms of the coalition agreement are not yet known, but several sources indicate that the CDS-PP – which lost its representation in parliament in the last parliamentary elections – will be entitled to two eligible seats (and two more in the gray electoral zone ). the lists of candidates to deputies.
These lists will only be approved at another meeting of the party’s highest body between congresses, probably on January 15 in Lisbon.
Initial, The schedule approved by the National Political Commission (CPN) predicted that this National Council would take place on the 12th, but the campaign for the early regional meetings in the Azores caused the date to be changed.
According to the schedule, the regional and district political committees will send their proposals for candidates for the Assembly of the Republic to the National Political Committee before January 5, after consulting the regional, district assemblies and sections, as provided for in the party’s statutes.
The decisive meetings between national and district management are scheduled for the period between January 8 and 11.
The PSD plans to deliver the approved lists to the various district courts between January 23 and 25, before the deadline set by the electoral law, on the 29th of the same month.
Portugal will hold early parliamentary elections on March 10, 2024, scheduled by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, following the resignation of the Prime Minister, António Costa, on November 7, the target of an investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office to the Supreme Court.
The election campaign for the parliamentary elections will take place between February 25 and March 8.
Source: DN
