The date has been chosen: June 15, Thursday. On this day, the PSD meets with its National Council (highest inter-congress body) to analyze the country’s political situation and approve the ordinance of the 41st Extraordinary Congress scheduled for November 25. But the date of the next National Council is a curiosity: on that same day, former Infrastructure Minister Pedro Nuno Santos will be heard by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) into the management of TAP. The ex-governor has already been in parliament this week to speak to deputies in the economy committee.
The call for the meeting on the 15th was announced in last Wednesday’s edition (the 7th) of the Free people, official PSD newspaper. According to published information, the National Council will meet at 9 p.m. in a hotel in Lisbon. In addition to analyzing the political situation and approving the rules for the November congress, the Social Democrats will also discuss and vote on last year’s financial report.
This Thursday’s meeting will be the third this year (the last one took place on 27 April). When announcing the decision to convene the 41st Extraordinary Congress, which was publicly announced on April 3 (after a meeting of the Permanent Committee, another party body), Luís Montenegro, President of the PSD, recalled that this was one of his designs was during the party’s direct election campaign, which took place on May 28 last year.
A year ago, Montenegro has committed to carry out a legal review during the first term in the Social Democratic leadership. In the motion he introduced in the race for leadership of the party, the now Social Democratic chairman defended the need to “promote a broad internal discussion with a view to modernizing the statutes”. The purpose of this legal review, the document defended at the time, is “relate to the enhanced internal democracy and openness of the PSD to civil society, including the proposed reform of the electoral model” for the party leadership. At the time of the announcement on April 3, Montenegro also did not close the door to a possible revision of the program.
If successfully completed, it will be the first time since 2012 (still led by Pedro de Passos Coelho) that the party can adopt new statutes. To this end, a committee should be set up to receive and discuss the proposed amendments. During Rui Rio’s previous presidency, there were legislative revision proposals to be presented in Congress, with the task in turn delegated to the National Council. However, the trial was postponed several times and never reached a vote.
Now the process of internal discussion for the legal revision was opened in the last National Council of the party, culminating in the November 25 congress – a date which, Montenegro said on April 3, “has a great historic burden on democratic values and for the values that formed the basis of the PSD”.
Source: DN
