Former minister José Pedro Aguiar-Branco will be the PSD’s candidate for president of the Assembly of the Republic in the 16th legislature and Hugo Soares for the leadership of the social-democratic bench, an official party source told Lusa.
According to the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the Republic, the election of the president of parliament takes place at the first plenary session of the legislature – scheduled for Tuesday – and “the candidate who obtains an absolute majority of the votes of the deputies in office” is elected.
If elected, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, the former defense minister, will succeed the Socialist Augusto Santos Silva (who failed to win the election in the Out of Europe constituency) as the second head of state.
Hugo Soares is expected to replace Joaquim Miranda Sarmento at the head of the PSD caucus, whose elections have not yet been formally scheduled, who has held the position since July 2023.
The Democratic Alliance (AD) won the March 10 elections and the PSD leader was appointed Prime Minister by the President of the Republic. Luís Montenegro will present his government on Thursday and is due to take office on April 2nd.
In the new parliament, the PSD will have 78 MPs (one more than in the previous legislature), the PS will also have 78 (42 less), Chega will rise from 12 to 50 MPs, IL will keep its eight MPs and BE the five it already had, while the PCP will drop from six to four. Livre grew from one to four and PAN kept its sole MP.
The CDS-PP returns to parliament with two deputies, obtained from the pre-election AD coalition (with PSD and PPM), which will total 80 deputies in the Assembly of the Republic.
Marcelo presides over Costa’s last Council of Ministers today with PRR on the agenda