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The PS won the regional elections on Sunday, electing 25 of the deputies to the Regional Legislative Assembly, but a right-wing bloc, in an eventual alliance (in the executive or with parliamentary agreements) between PSD, CDS, Chega, PPM and Iniciativa Liberal could function as an alternative of governance in the region, since a union of all elected parliamentarians gives 29 elected members (what is necessary for an absolute majority).
The law indicates that the representative of the Republic, Pedro Catarino, will appoint the new president of the Regional Government “after listening to the political parties” represented in the new Azorean parliament.
According to an indication given to the Lusa agency by a source in the office of the representative of the Republic, Pedro Catarino will only be able to hear the representatives of the political parties elected this Sunday once the official results are published in the Diário da República, which which may still take a few days.
The general assembly for the computation of results only begins its work “at 9:00 am on the second day after the election” (today), and must complete the official computation of results “until the tenth day after the election.”
These data will later be sent to the National Electoral Commission (CNE), which will have eight days to send “an official map with the results of the elections” for publication in the Diário da República.
During these days, it is expected that the parties will begin negotiations for possible government formations – joining various forces or supported in parliament – that can be presented to Pedro Catarino.
After the next Government of the Azores takes office, there will be a maximum period of 10 days for the executive’s program to be delivered to the Legislative Assembly.
“The program of the Regional Government is submitted to the consideration and vote of the Legislative Assembly, which must meet for this purpose, until the fifteenth day after the Regional Government takes office,” says the Political-Administrative Statute of the Azores.
The debate on the program “cannot exceed three days” and, until its closure, “any parliamentary group can propose the rejection of the program of the Diputación in the form of a duly founded motion.”
Without an absolute majority in the Azores for the first time in 20 years, the PS will now have, to formalize an executive, to negotiate with the seven remaining political forces with a seat in the regional parliament, where they first arrived: Chega, Liberal Initiative and BREAD.
One possibility is an agreement between the 25 deputies of the PS, the three of the CDS-PP – who have already approved socialist budgets in the recent past – and the single parliamentarian of the PAN.
However, the centrists can also be part of a right-wing bloc, joining the 21 MPs from the PSD, two from the PPM (one in coalition with the CDS), two from Chega and one from the Liberal Initiative.
On Sunday, Vasco Cordeiro, president of the Government of the Azores since 2012, defined the socialist victory as “clear and unequivocal”, but recognized a new “challenging parliamentary framework.”
In the hands of Vasco Cordeiro, according to the secretary general of the PS, António Costa, the government will now be “building solutions.”
From the PSD, which managed to elect two more deputies than in the 2016 elections, Vasco Cordeiro has heard that there will be “total availability for dialogue” and for “agreement”.
For the PSD / Azores leader, the new parliamentary composition is “so versatile that it can admit everything”, but questioned about a possible coalition on the right to govern (which should include CDS-PP, Chega, Liberal Initiative and PPM) José Manuel Bolieiro said that he was not moved by “extremist and populist attitudes.”
“It is not easy to bring all the parties together,” confirmed the leader of the PSD, Rui Rio.
Chega’s national leader rejected on Sunday night any coalition agreement that would allow the right to govern the Azores, recalling that it was the PSD that withdrew from his party.
Through the CDS-PP, the regional leader, Artur Lima, assured that the party will not leave the region in a situation of “ungovernability” and that “it will speak, naturally.”
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