Mário Cruz / Lusa
The PSD’s National Jurisdiction Council ruled in favor of the list that lost the last elections for the municipality of Espinho and recognized “irregularities” in the process, the candidate defeated in that ballot revealed today, which will now have to be repeated.
The information comes after Ricardo Sousacandidate who won the aforementioned elections, challenged in May the decision of the Jurisdiction Council of the District of Aveiro de to send repeat the procedure on February 28 due to discrepancies between the number of votes cast for municipal bodies and the number of ballots cast for new district bodies.
In the election in question, the parliamentary deputy Carolina Marqueswhich was supported in the election by Luís Montenegro, lost by two votes the race for the municipality of Espinho.
“I have always understood that, in the face of signs of irregularities, the duty is to resort to the means provided for in the statutes. The decision now known confirms that these doubts were not unfounded and that there were irregularities that justified the intervention of the competent bodies”, declared the deputy.
Rejecting that the decision of the social-democratic hierarchy is “a victory or a defeat for whoever”, the least voted candidate argues that the contestation “does not weaken the party – on the contrary, it strengthens its institutions and reinforces the confidence of all activists”.
The deputy only regrets “that a process that should have been handled internally ended up gaining a public dimension which in no way benefited the PSD of Espinho”.
“The decision of the national jurisdiction council determines the holding of a new election, which I face it responsibly“, says the deputy.
“I hope this new process takes place in a climate of transparencyrigor and absolute compliance with statutory norms, allowing activists to express themselves with full confidence in the legitimacy of the result”, adds Carolina Marques.
Contacted by Lusa, Ricardo Sousa admits that, “unfortunately this decision is not surprising. The ruling mainly binds those who sign it”, explains the winner of the February elections.
“A independence of the main jurisdictional bodythat of the PSD was deeply compromisednamely due to the actions of the rapporteur and the then president of that body, the Minister of Health”, he highlights, adding that he will not dispense with “appealing to the Constitutional Court so that democratic legality can be re-established”.
This is another one episode in the succession of cases against Ricardo Sousawhich has attributed them to a “personal reckoning” by Luís Montenegro.
The first of these cases took place in the pre-campaign for the 2025 municipal elections, as the jurist was the unanimous choice of local activists to head the Espinho Municipal Council, but then saw your avocado process by the national PSD.
It was followed by nomination by Jorge Ratola as an alternative candidate, when he was still deputy of Montenegro, which was announced by the district of Aveiro, led by Emídio Sousa, at the time Secretary of State for the Environment and now for Communities.
Ricardo Sousa contested the change first at the party’s National Jurisdiction Council, without success, and then at the STF, but this did not prevent Ratola’s candidacy, who ended up being elected to the Chamber in October.
As a source linked to the case said at the time, cited by Lusa, the Court opted for rejection because, “despite having recognized that the process was not the most correct, I didn’t have time to fix it anymore” before the elections.
Then came the time to choose the president of the council, Ricardo Sousa ran for a new term against parliamentary deputy Carolina Marques, who, At 28, she was Montenegro’s favorite.
Ricardo Sousa won by two votes, and Lusa reported at the time that at the council’s polls 269 of the 304 registered activists attended on the section’s electoral rolls.
When this result was also challenged by the party hierarchy, Ricardo Sousa highlighted that municipal and district elections had “different ballot boxes” and “autonomous voting”.
“The non-conformityThis was not verified for the bodies of the Espinh sectiono, where the total of 269 voters are expressed in the votes cast in the ballot box, including the minutes of the election were signed by the representatives of the losing ticket”, he highlighted.
The district’s recount didn’t add up: given the 269 activists called to choose the District Assembly Board, the Permanent Political Committee, the Financial Audit Committee and the Section Delegates, the District Jurisdiction Council said that three bulletins were missing for two of these bodies and two others printed for another.
Ricardo Sousa then appealed to the National Jurisdiction Councill, but, in an open letter to the activists, At the time he was not optimisticclaiming to know well that “the party lives under a simulacrum of democracy”.
To finish off the missive, he evoked an old situation.
“It is impossible not to remember here an event that occurred 20 years ago, in an election for the Espinho section, in which the then president of the Board, Luís Montenegro, admitted in a vote 6 activists who were not on the electoral roll issued by the competent services – and the ticket he supported won the elections by 4 votes”.
