And so it goes on and on ….
In view of the situation, Manuel António Correia demands “a clear and immediate response”, the provision of the minutes of the Jurisdiction Council meeting and also “strict compliance with the deadlines established in the internal regulations”.
Check out the new request presented by Manuel António Correia in full below:
“In accordance with the Statutes of PSD Madeira, particularly articles 17, 22 and 26, and considering the request submitted on December 23, 2024, accompanied by signatures of more than 300 members requesting the convening of an Extraordinary Regional Congress with the election of a new Regional Political Committee, I hereby formally request the following:
1. To date, almost 1 (one) month after the submission of the request, there remains no response to it.
The regional media reported that an analysis and deliberation on the same was carried out by the PSD-M Jurisdiction Council on January 9, 2025, without us even formally knowing the precise scope of that body having been called to pronounce itself. However, to date, secrecy has been deliberately maintained surrounding the decision allegedly taken, and the minutes of the meeting have also not been sent, as formally requested by the First Subscriber by means of a request dated on the same day.
This situation raises doubts about the impartiality, fairness and transparency of the entire process of analysis and deliberation on the submitted request, a situation which is further aggravated by the fact that the President of the Jurisdictional Council, Rui Abreu, serves as head of the Office of the Presidency of the Regional Government of Madeira. The President of the Regional Government and of the PSD-M, Miguel Albuquerque, has publicly and repeatedly stated that he does not want internal elections to be held, so that the impartiality and fairness of the Jurisdictional Council is currently being called into question, and is likely to affect the validity of its deliberations.
2. It is deeply worrying that the President of PSD Madeira, Miguel Albuquerque, has publicly declared that “there is no time” and “there will be no congress”, belittling a legitimate request and treating the party as personal property, with complete disregard for the 540 party members who signed the request and for the internal decision-making procedures of the PSD-M bodies, which have not yet formally and publicly decided on the matter, with the clear intention of conditioning their deliberations.
The argument of lack of time, frequently used by the President of PSD-M, is a fallacy, since the party has demonstrated that it is capable of carrying out internal processes in shorter timeframes. In the 2024 internal elections, for example, the PSD-M Regional Council took place on February 21 and the direct elections on March 20, that is, in less than a month.
In view of the above, I hereby request the following:
a) A clear and immediate response to the request to convene the Extraordinary Regional Congress, in accordance with the party’s Statutes;
b) The provision of the minutes of the Jurisdictional Council meeting, identifying the participants, the matters discussed, the decisions taken and the respective voting intentions of the participants;
c) Strict compliance with the deadlines established in the internal regulations, safeguarding the internal democracy of PSD Madeira and ensuring respect for the members who signed the request”