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The mayor of Chaves said that “a democratic error was corrected” when he endorsed the reopening of automobile traffic on the Roman bridge, despite low voter turnout (12%).
“A democratic error has been corrected when making a decision without consulting the public,” said the mayor of Chaves, in the Vila Real district, Nuno Vaz, in reaction to the result of the local referendum held on Sunday, in which he voted 12% of the 43,480. voters registered in the municipality and the “no” obtained more than 85% of the votes.
The Roman bridge of Chaves, listed as a national monument, has been pedestrianized since 2008 and, during the 2017 municipal electoral campaign, the socialist Nuno Vaz pledged to support the reopening of traffic.
For the mayor, “history was made in Chaves” since there was “definitely a legal situation” and the first local referendum in the municipality and the sixth in the country.
Nuno Vaz also pointed out that the holding of the referendum during the covid-19 pandemic was “a test of the ability and possibility of organizing participation in this context” and that “it is possible under certain well-thought-out conditions to carry out electoral events.” .
Given the participation of 12% of the voters, the socialist said that “the most important thing was to provide a definitive solution” to the matter to refer.
“The pandemic and the risk that people are associated with this type of participation may be one of the explanations [para a baixa participação] or because people are not yet dedicated to this type of local referendum, since it is the sixth local referendum at the national level, it is recent and there is little knowledge, “he said.
For Nuno Vaz, now is the time to “continue valuing the heritage and affirm the identity of Chaves and the Flavians”, arguing that the municipality has “a set of material, singular and unique values that justify that they can be registered in an international registry as a World Heritage Site “.
The mayor explained that the objective “is more ambitious” than the mere classification of the Roman bridge as a world heritage site and has revealed that he intends to initiate a process for the candidacy of Chaves to that category.
“We have this ambition, to start the process, build the team and develop the technical studies so that, in a few years, we can have a candidacy from Chaves to the heritage of humanity, so they are the material and immaterial evidence or the crossroads of several peoples over time ”, he revealed.
According to the results released by the Câmara de Chaves, the “no” to the reopening of the Roman bridge to car traffic, in a single direction, won with 4,440 votes (85.37%).
In total, 5,250 voters voted, which corresponds to 12.07% of the 43,480 registered. The “no” won in the 39 parishes of the municipality, and the “yes” obtained a total of 769 votes (14.79%). There were also 14 blank votes (0.27%) and 35 invalid votes (0.67%), with an abstention of 87.93%.
This electoral act was the first to occur since the covid-19 pandemic began, which led to the publication of prevention measures on the official website of the Ministry of the Interior (MAI).
The proposal for the holding of the referendum in Chaves had been presented by the executive headed by Nuno Vaz and approved in a chamber session on June 22, and was also approved by the Municipal Assembly of Chaves and validated by the Constitutional Court.
