Albuquerque government could fall this Tuesday after six months in office

Regional parliament discusses and votes today on the motion of censure presented in November by Chega.

A week after the rejection of the Regional Budget proposal for 2025 , the plenary will discuss and vote on the motion of censure presented in November by Chega to the social-democratic executive and justified by the party with the legal proceedings involving Miguel Albuquerque and four regional secretaries, who were named defendants in separate cases.

The motion is guaranteed to be approved if the parties maintain their announced votes and will lead to the fall of the executive in office since June 6, after the early elections of May 26.

Article 62 of the Political-Administrative Statute of Madeira establishes that the resignation of the Regional Government implies, among other reasons, “the approval of a motion of censure by an absolute majority of the deputies in office” and, in the event of resignation, the members of the outgoing executive “remain in office until the inauguration of the new government”.

With the fall of the Regional Government, the Region will open a new chapter in the political crisis that began almost a year ago, when at the end of January Albuquerque resigned after being named a defendant in a process in which suspicions of corruption in Madeira are being investigated.

At the time, it was necessary to wait until the end of March for the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, to dissolve the Legislative Assembly and call early elections for May 26, eight months after the regional elections of September 2023.

The waiting period allowed the regional structures of the PSD and CDS-PP to hold internal elections, with the Social Democrats reconfirming the leadership of Miguel Albuquerque and the Christian Democrats opting for a change of face and electing José Manuel Rodrigues.

The early regional elections were once again won by the PSD, but for the third time in a row the social democrats failed to secure an absolute majority and, this time, they were not even able to secure it afterwards with parliamentary agreements.

The process of nominating Albuquerque, leader of the Regional Government since 2015, for a new term ended up being troubled, with the PS and JPP (with a total of 20 seats, still short of the 24 needed for an absolute majority) presenting a “joint government solution”.

The proposal was, however, rejected by the representative of the Republic, Ireneu Barreto, who considered that it had “no chance of success” in the Madeiran parliament, unlike Miguel Albuquerque, who had “every condition to see his Program approved in the Legislative Assembly”.

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