One of the fathers of the Constitution recalled that it is the parties that form the government and not the coalitions that are “mere surrogates”. Vital Moreira argues that “a party cannot “increase” or “add” its parliamentary representation to that of another party. Each party stands for itself.”
Vital Moreira, considered one of the fathers of the Constitution of the Republic of Portugal, argues that the party with the most votes in the presidential elections should be invited to form the government, leaving coalitions on this account.
At a time when four seats are still to be determined in electoral districts in Europe and the rest of the world, the constitutionalist recalled, if the PS is still outnumbered Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa should be invited to form a government. Votes over PSD, not counting the two CDS-PP seats.
Looking at parties alone, currently, PS is the party with the highest number of votes (28.66%) with 77 seats. AD followed by (28.63%) 76 seats, 74 PSD, two CDS-PP. In Madeira the PSD/CDS-PP alliance has three votes with three seats.
“Electoral coalitions are destroyed counting on election results, parliamentary mandates belong to parties, not to coalitions, and – even if PSD and CDS representatives join the same parliamentary group (which never happens) -, parties are called to form governments (…), therefore, PS as the largest parliamentary party. If there is to be, first it must be called to form a government”, wrote the professor of the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra in his blog Casa Nosa.
“In our parliamentary democracy, governments are formed by the parties represented in Parliament and not by past electoral alliances. When the President has to initiate the constitution of a new government, his interlocutors are the leaders of the parties represented in the AR, not the supposed leaders of the dissolved electoral coalition (which, in fact, does not have a leadership). , as it lacks its own identity) . Indeed, it is politically unacceptable in a representative democracy for a political party to be valid not by the number of mandates in Parliament, but by the number of its representatives and the number of other parties. A party cannot “increase” or “add” its parliamentary representation to the representatives of another party. Each party stands for itself”, according to Vital Moreira, a former MEP of the PS, but not affiliated with the party.
However, the PS Secretary General himself has already taken a stand on this issue, already admitting defeat and congratulating Luis Montenegro on his victory. “Despite the tangential difference between us and the AD (Democratic Alliance), everything indicates that this decision will not allow the PS to be the party with the most votes without insulting the votes and voters in our communities' constituencies. Therefore, in these elections AD I want to congratulate and congratulate for the victory,” the Socialist leader said on Sunday night, as quoted by “Lusa”.
For the constitutionalist, the formation of a government by the PS is “a decidedly unattractive hypothesis for a socialist leader, more interested in leading the opposition to a weak AD government, eventually “joined” by IL, but politically dependent on Sega. In any case, assuming defeat at the end of yesterday's election day, the PNS preempted such a solution. gave up
Vital Moreira recalled the speech he wrote after the elections in September 2015, which led to the rise to power of Antonio Costa, supported by dissension in parliament. “(…) Mandates belong to parties, not coalitions. Candidates belong to parties, representatives belong to parties. Electoral coalitions are a simple proxy that only serve to take advantage of electoral concentration to elect more representatives than parties would elect individually.
Electoral alliances “expire with the election, as it is stipulated in Art. 22 of the Electoral Code – a provision he clearly ignores (which destroys his entire argument) – and simple logic requires that once the purpose of the electoral alliance is exhausted. This applies to the PaF and the CDU, as well as to all previous electoral alliances. This applies. It is clear that parties in an electoral alliance may form a new alliance for other purposes, but it does not revive the previous electoral alliance. Therefore, it is impossible to establish continuity or political affiliation between the electoral alliance and the subsequent government alliance”.
“In our parliamentary democracy, governments are formed by the parties represented in Parliament and not by past electoral alliances. When the President has to initiate the constitution of a new government, his interlocutors are the leaders of the parties represented in the AR, not the supposed leaders of the dissolved electoral coalition (which, in fact, does not have a leadership). , as it lacks its own identity) . Indeed, it is politically unacceptable in a representative democracy for a political party to be valid not by the number of mandates in Parliament, but by the number of its representatives and the number of other parties. A party cannot “increase” or “add” its parliamentary representation to the representatives of another party. Each party stands up for itself,” the constitutionalist wrote at the time in response to Pedro Lompa, secretary of state of the then PSD/CDS-PP government.
“The PSD can form a government and re-establish a possible government coalition with the CDS (or another party!) if it is the party with the most popular mandates, not because it has more votes (or more representatives) with the other. That is parliamentary democracy!”, according to Vital Moreira. .
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