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Benfica’s presidential candidate, João Noronha Lopes, sent a letter to the president of the Benfica General Assembly requesting clarification on two candidacies
Candidate letter:
Hon. Mr. President of the General Assembly of Sport Lisboa e Benfica, We are aware that one or more candidates for the electoral act for the governing bodies of Sport Lisboa e Benfica, marked by you. as of October 30, 2020. They resorted to collecting “digital signatures” from the proposing partners for their lists. According to the press, these lists were presented yesterday to the president of the General Board:
We would like to get from you. the following clarifications:
I. Consider this application that it is only possible to accept an application with the minimum of assured physical signatures, since another was not your position. to date and this is the general understanding in similar processes (see, among others, article 15 of DL 319.76 of May 3. Electoral Law of the President of the Republic).
2. So be it. This candidacy considers that the Board of Trustees of the General Meeting must carefully analyze the use of said eventual procedure by other candidatures, rejecting those candidatures that do not comply with the requirement contained in No. 5 of art. 58 of the statutes for the collection of physical signatures corresponding to at least 10,000 votes, because there are no other signatures, considering that the statutes indicate “signatures” as a requirement and that another interpretation, in addition to the strict one, was not allowed by any clarification of V Exa.
3. That accepting the “digital signatures” now, in addition to not complying with the provisions of the statutes, constitutes an unequal treatment of the different applications. It is also equivalent to not knowing the greater effort and resources used in physical collection. Improperly benefiting those who did not do so and were able to use those resources and efforts in other ways.
4. That the pandemic situation that the country is experiencing did not exclude, but rather demanded a greater effort in the physical collection of signatures, thus its weighting in terms of such an unreasonable, discretionary and discriminatory argument.
5. Finally, this candidacy considers that the statutes will be fulfilled when the candidacy in which some element does not have the active electoral capacity for the position in the governing bodies to which it is nominated is not accepted.
6. If this is legally clear, we consider that it is also the impossibility for another candidate to the governing bodies that is part of the same candidacy to substitute -after the delivery of the list of candidates- the announced candidate for Chairman of the Board. This is due to the evident fact that the signatures were collected proposing a certain partner for the chairman of the board of directors and not another that, by chance, substitutes the legal impossibility of the first, even before being elected.
Not accepting this fact is not only defrauding the will of the proponents, but also directly violating the provisions of the statutes by demanding the express will of the members representing 10,000 votes, a defined list headed by the name and a declaration of acceptance to the most important position. , the president of the board of directors of Clube Sport Lisboa e Benfica. Therefore, we appeal to you. Do not accept exceptional regimes that the general law itself does not contemplate and that, due to the dignity and importance of the future electoral act, will never be accepted by this Candidacy.
With our best institutional compliments,
National representative of the João Noronha Lopes list
