About 1,800 voters registered in Benfica voted until 11 a.m. Sunday in the referendum on the expansion of paid parking in that parish of Lisbon, the mayor stressed, stressing that the accession is in line with that of the European elections.
“Do you agree that Benfica City Council is giving a favorable opinion on the installation of parking meters in Benfica’s restricted parking areas?” is the question that the inhabitants of Benfica answer in the referendum that takes place in schools in the parish and in which the 30,000 registered voters can vote.
Benfica Parish Council President Ricardo Marques told the Lusa bureau that turnout at polling stations is “going very well”.
“We are very satisfied. We are in line with what is normally the number of voters in a European election”said the mayor, noting that this is the first local referendum in the city of Lisbon and the sixth on a national scale in 50 years of democracy.
Ricardo Marques added that by 11 a.m. about 1,800 of those registered had voted, but underlined that the number “has gone up a lot” because from then until 1 p.m. is always one of the periods with the highest turnout.
“Schools are now full of people [às 12:45]we already have polling stations reaching 300 voters per polling station, we have 25 polling stations, it’s easy to calculate,” he noted.
The mayor also emphasized the “very participative” attitude of voters who expressed their satisfaction that “their vote has returned”.
“This is something very interesting I felt,” he said, given that they are taking “a very important step in what is an approach to the relationship of trust between political power” and citizens.
“It’s unfortunately something that hasn’t gone over very well these days, and that’s why we’re following a really interesting path here,” he stated.
Asked if participation in the referendum will live up to his expectations, Ricardo Marques said that “he is an optimist”: “I was counting on a turnout of more than 8,000 voters, if we continue this trend, and since the afternoon is always a bit more of voters , I think we can get close to 7,500, 8,000 voters, which is very good and very expressive when we have about 50% abstention in a parliamentary election, which is something we have to fight against”.
The result of a referendum is binding if more than half of the registered voters take part in it.
On Friday, EMEL declined to reveal whether it will respect today’s referendum result, so as not to “influence the debate”.
In a reply to Lusa, the company explained that it is part of the public business and is “particularly bound and committed to the duty of exemption imposed by the legal regime of the local referendum”.
“Do not want to, cannot and should not influence the debate and the election campaign in any way,” read the reply, which he declined to comment on before the referendum took place.
Source: DN
