(dr) Ponte de Lima City Council
Ponte de Lima City Council
Lúcia Soares Pereira is one of the six candidates admitted to the competition in Ponte de Lima. PSDB wants the councilor to resign immediately.
A councilor with the portfolio of Communication already Ponte de Lima Chamber is one of six admitted candidates in a competition to fill a position technical top of communication social, not occupied in the municipality’s personnel map.
After the case was reported by , the PSD, with a councilor in the municipality, came out in a statement to demand clarifications from the municipal executive, made up of five members of the CDS-PP and a councilor from the Ponte de Lima Minha Terra movement (PLMT).
In the note, the PSD states that, “if the reported facts are confirmed, it becomes politically unsustainable for councilor Lúcia Soares Pereira to remain in executive functions, imposing her immediate dismissal, as well as the suspension and possible annulment of the competitive procedure”.
“If the facts reported in the article published by Sete Jornal are confirmed, we will be facing a profoundly disturbing for citizens’ trust in democratic institutions and in the face of evidence that could raise serious doubts regarding respect for the principles of impartiality, transparency and equality that must govern all Public Administration”, maintains the PSD.
To Lusa, the mayor of Ponte de Lima, Vasco Ferraz, said that he will take a position on the matter “in the own locations, such as the Chamber meeting and the City Council”.
Lusa contacted the councilor, but so far has not received a response.
The PSD adds that, “if it is true that a councilor from the current executive appears as a candidate for a vacancy in a service supervised by her in the City Council, further aggravating the situation with the supposed participation of a member of the jury with connections to the candidate and with public references to non-compliance with the legal deadlines for the procedure, it will be a politically unacceptable and highly damaging to the Municipality’s institutional credibility”.
Contacted by the Lusa agency, the social-democratic councilor, José Nuno Vieira de Araújo, said that, “if the facts are true, the party will send the process and all known public information to the Public Ministry”.
The Ponte de Lima council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, at 3pm, but is closed to the media. The City Council is scheduled for June.
Lúcia Soares Pereira has worked at the municipality since 2021 as secretary of the council. After the municipal elections of October 2025, it became responsible for Communication, Social Development, Family, Inclusion and Health, Electoral Processes and Voter Registration, Citizenship and Participation, Cooperation and Interinstitutional Relations.
According to Sete Jornal, in the ongoing competition “councilwoman Lúcia Soares Pereira obtained 19.80 in 20 values possible in the knowledge test”, being “for now the best placed to occupy the position open to a senior communications technician at the Ponte de Lima Chamber”.
According to the publication, “the principle of impartiality was not upheld” and “the deadlines for applying the selection methods were also not respected”.
Lusa consulted the four minutes of the common competitive procedure for establishing a public employment relationship for an indefinite period for a senior social communications technician, foreseen and not occupied in the personnel map.
The competition, published on the official page of the Ponte de Lima Chamber, opened and closed in August 2025, but has not yet been concluded. Last February, the jury analyzed the 31 entries sent and validated 28.
The first selection method – knowledge test or curricular assessment – took place on March 13th and, in April, the classification was known, with six candidates being admitted, including Lúcia Soares Pereira who obtained the best grade, with 19.80 points.
The second selection method still needs to be completed, the psychological assessment.
“This method must be ensured by the General Directorate of Administration and Public Employment and, in case of impossibility, by using technicians from the local authority or a private entity. Therefore, the aforementioned public entity will be consulted in order to ascertain its availability”, reads in minutes number four of the competition.
