Tiago Petinga / Lusa
Chega’s deputy, André Ventura.
First it was a request from the presidential candidacy, then it was a request from Chega. The meeting with young people was cancelled.
The President of the Assembly of the Republic rejected the holding in parliament today of a Chega’s action integrated into André Ventura’s presidential candidacy for violating the principle of neutrality inherent to this sovereign body.
On Tuesday, the presidential candidacy by André Ventura sent a note to the media announcing that the candidate “will be present”, today, at 6pm, “in a meeting with young peoplein the Almeida Santos Auditorium, at the Assembly of the Republic, to hear their concerns.” A meeting “open to journalists”.
Next, in the face of objections from the services of the Assembly of the Republic, the Parliamentary Group of the He arrives reformulated the orderwith deputy Rita Matias claiming that the event “is organized by you together with young deputies Daniel Teixeira, Madalena Cordeiro, Rui Cardoso and Ricardo Reis”.
He argued “with the aim of involving young people in democratic institutions” and said that the event is not organized by André Venturabut that he “will be present at the invitation of the Chega group of deputies, as president of the party”.
However, according to the President of the Assembly of the Republic, “despite the initial request to reserve the Almeida Santos auditorium having been formulated as an institutional meeting between young deputies from the Chega Parliamentary Group and young party activists, the subsequent public announcement made by presidential candidate André Ventura, expressly qualifying the event as a ‘meeting with young people’ within the scope of his presence as a candidate and announcing the opening of the event to the media, decisively changes the legal nature of the initiative”.
“In effect, from the moment the presidential candidate himself publicly assumes the initiative as part of the campaign context electoral campaign, the alleged initial organizational intention or the subsequent attempt to return the event to a mere action of civic involvement is no longer relevant. What is relevant, in light of electoral law and constant constitutional jurisprudence, is the objective ability of the event to influence the electorate, as well as the use of public facilities and resources for this purpose”, states the order from the President of the Assembly of the Republic.
José Pedro Aguiar-Branco then highlights that “the principles of neutrality, impartiality e equality of opportunities between candidacies”, enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, “bind all public entities, including the Assembly of the Republic and its bodies and services”.
“These principles translate into a duty to equidistance absolute in relation to the different applicationsespecially during election periods. This duty is not limited to abstaining from express support, it also covers the prohibition of acts that, even if indirectly or in a subtle way, may favor a candidacy, namely through the provision of institutional spaces of high political symbolism”, highlights the president of the Assembly of the Republic.
José Pedro Aguiar-Branco points out that “it clearly results from constitutional jurisprudence” that “does not take into account the merely informative or civic intention invoked by the promoters, nor the formal qualification attributed to the event”.
“What the law aims to to move away is precisely the communicational ambiguity, susceptible to being interpreted by citizens as political or electoral promotion”, he maintains.
In this sense, for José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, “the holding of an electoral campaign event on the premises of the Assembly of the Republic, using an institutional space and under the aegis of a Parliamentary Group, would be objectively susceptible to violate the principles of neutrality, impartiality and equal opportunities between candidatesconstituting an improper use of public resources for partisan purposes”.
“Thus, since the event is objectively framed within the electoral scope, due to the public disclosure carried out by the candidate himself and his inclusion in the campaign’s communicational space, its holding in the premises of the Assembly of the Republic violates the duties of institutional neutrality and the prohibition of using public resources for electoral propaganda purposes”, the order emphasizes.
As a result, adds the president of parliament, “maintaining the authorization initially granted would prove to be legally unsustainable, under penalty of the Assembly of the Republic becomes, even if unintentionally, an instrument of favoring a candidacyin clear violation of the Constitution and applicable electoral law”.
