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The Constitutional Court has dismissed the appeal filed by the Government of Madeira (PSD) against a resolution of the National Electoral Commission (CNE), which accuses the executive of having violated the duties of neutrality and impartiality during the election campaign.
In a ruling on the 6th of March, the Constitutional Court (TC) justifies the refusal by considering that “the illegitimate use of advertising mechanisms that contradict the duties of neutrality and impartiality” is configured, as the National Elections Commission had found.
The CNE ruling reads:
At issue are seven complaints against the Madeira Government and the Regional Secretariat for Finance, represented by the President, Miguel Albuquerque, and the secretary, Rogério Gouveia, after they were published on the official pages on the social network Facebook, between the 29th of January and the 16th ofFebruary “images and texts that would be characterised as institutional advertising, prohibited during election periods, for offending the duties of neutrality and impartiality.”
The CNE notified Miguel Albuquerque and Rogério Gouveia on the 18th of February, and both responded two days later, claiming that they did not transgress the duties of neutrality and impartiality.
The government officials stressed that “the publications in question do not underlie any promotional character, but only informative and clarification”, and that “no appeal was made to vote,” stressing that the complaint is “abusive and was made in bad faith” and the complaints “are false and unfounded.”
However, the National Elections Commission found that the seven publications “contain repeated praise for the performance of the Regional Government and present future promises and references to the need for continuity in the Regional Government of the current political force,” having been released after the date of the election for the Legislative Assembly, whose publication in the Official Gazette took place on the 27th of January 2025.
“On the official Facebook channel of the Government of Madeira, there was an express association with the mandates of the current President of the Regional Government and criticism of other political forces,” says the CNE, adding that the image of the chief executive, also regional leader of the PSD, is “repeatedly introduced in the publications.”
Miguel Albuquerque is the head of the list of the social-democratic candidacy for the early regional elections on the 23rd of March.
The CNE also considers, among other aspects, that none of the publications concerned contain information that can be perceived as objective and of immediate use to citizens and concluded that the duties of neutrality and impartiality to which the Regional Government and the Regional Secretariat of Finance are subject during the electoral period were violated.
The National Elections Commission referred the case to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, considering that there are “indications of the practice of the crime of violation of the duties of neutrality and impartiality,” and ordered the regional executive to remove the publications within 24 hours, under penalty of incurring the crime of disobedience.
The Regional Government and the Secretariat of Finance appealed to the Constitutional Court against the CNE’s decision on the 25th of February 2025, but it was refused.
The early elections take place 10 months after the previous ones, following the approval of a motion of censure presented by Chega – which justified it with judicial investigations involving members of the PSD minority Regional Government, including the president, Miguel Albuquerque – and the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly by the President of the Republic.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com