Aguiar-Branco Reelected President of AR (with the second largest vote ever)

The President of the Assembly of the Republic was reelected Tuesday in office, with 202 votes in favor-the second largest vote ever for the second political hierarchy of the country, behind only the 204 votes obtained by Jaime Gama, PS, in 2009.

This time there was no. Only candidate for office, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco He was elected president of the Assembly of the Republic to the first vote.

Aguiar-Branco was proposed by its party, the PSD, which has the largest parliamentary bench, following the early May 18 legislatures, which AD won, without absolute majority, managing to elect 91 Deputies.

Arrives, the second largest bench, with 60 deputies, and the PS, with 58, announced that would not hinder reelection of the President of the Assembly of the Republic – contrary to what happened a year ago.

In 2024, in the start of a legislature in which PSD and PS were tied in number of terms, there was alternative candidacies of these two partiesat different times.

A year ago, the president of AR was only, after an agreement with the PS for the sharing of office During the legislature – which did not materialize due to the dissolution of the parliament. He then obtained 160 votes, against 50 of his opponent Rui Paulo Sousa, from the arrival.

This Tuesday, at the first plenary meeting of the XVII Legislature, the former Minister of Justice and Defense was Reelected with 202 votes in favor, 25 blank votes and three nulls, in an election in which the 230 deputies participated in office.

This vote was near the sum of the deputies of the benches From PSD and CDS-PP, arrives and PS, 209. In this legislature, there are still nine IL deputies, six of Livre, three from PCP, Dum of Be, one from Pan and one from JPP.

In half a century of parliamentary democracy, Just Jaime Gamaof the PS, had a larger vote for the President of the Assembly of the Republic, in his reelection, in 2009, with 204 votes in favor and seven blank votesafter being elected with 197 votes in 2005.

Aguiar-white surpassed the votes of its predecessors Assunção Esteves, from the PSD, which was elected with 186 votes in 2011, Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, from PS, which was elected with 120 in 2015, and reelected with 178 votes in 2019, and Augusto Santos Silva, from the PS, which was elected with 156 votes in 2022.

Also surpassed the votes of Almeida Santosof the PS, which was elected with 164 votes in 1995, and reelected with 187 in 1999, and Barbosa de Melo of the PSD, elected with 117 votes, in 1991 – the year in which the Assembly of the Republic went from 250 to 230 deputies.

In previous legislatures, with 250 deputies, the highest vote was that of Fernando Amaral, from the PSDin the second legislative session of the II Legislature, in 1984: 174 votes in favor, equivalent to 160 votes in a parliament with 230 deputies.

In 1976, in the I Legislature, in which there were 263 deputiesVasco da Gama Fernandes, PS, was elected president of the Assembly of the Republic with 215 votes in favor, which equals 188 in the current composition of Parliament.

Since 1976, after Henrique de Barros (PS) has chaired the Constituent Assembly, the Assembly of the Republic had 15 different presidents.

Urbanity in the debate and consensus

In his intervention, after being reelected president of Parliament, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco considered a culture of tolerance and urbanity in the political debate and invoked the constituents elected in 1975 to ask the current deputies efforts to consensus.

The former social democratic minister signaled the “Happy CoincidenceOf the 17th Legislature begins one day after the Constituent Assembly.

“It looks like a distant mirage that 250 deputiesof seven different parties, they sat on this same room and achieved agreement on how our institutions would work from then on, ”he said.

The President of the Assembly of the Republic then observed that also in 1975 “It could not be said to miss polarization To the political debate ”in Portugal,“ not so little divergences, or antagonism between parties, ideas or deputies ”.

“Even so they did it. For 50 years these 250 constituent deputies, of seven different parties, were able to see beyond the differences, were able to find common denominators and to write, together, a root constitution, ”recalled José Pedro Aguiar-Branco.

Therefore, in its perspective, given the dimension of what was achieved at this time, between 1975 and 1976, “any challenge that can be faced in the next four years It will always be smaller than this”.

“Which leads me to an obvious conclusion: Consensus is possibleremains possible. Being able to overcome these challenges, being able to find our common denominators, is what the Portuguese expect from us. Better said: it is what they demand from us, ”he said.

José Pedro Aguiar-Branco also referred detail to the issues of tolerance before divergences and urbanity in the debate political.

“I have my opinion about the interventions I listen to in plenary, while president I have a duty to ensure that they are heardeven when I do not agree, especially when I do not agree, ”he said.

“But I also have a duty to ensure that they can be contradictedwith the equality of weapons that democratic dialectic requires. The judgment about what is said here should be done, not for me, but by citizens, ”he said.

José Pedro Aguiar-Branco stressed that he believes that “the prestige of parliament and the role of deputy lacks recognition in society as a greater good of the democratic regime. ”For the former social democratic minister,“ democracy is not saved, nor defends itself, built”.

“And it is built here, in this room. Not with more or less inflamed proclamations or meritorious coming from the different benches but with the proposals we present, with the approvals and rejections we voted for, ”he concluded.