The solemn session is scheduled to start at 11:00 am, with the official ceremony released by the Assembly of the Republic noting one distinction compared to the 2024 session marking the 50th anniversary of April 25th: instead of red carnations, the chamber will be adorned with white roses.
Other than this, the session’s format will mirror that of the 50th anniversary of April 25th, including the speech durations: each parliamentary group will have six minutes, and each single deputy, three.
Speeches will follow the usual order of increasing parliamentary representation, beginning with JPP and followed by PAN, BE, CDS-PP, Livre, IL, PS, Chega, and PSD.
The session will also feature a speech by the President of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, with the final address given by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
The PCP has already announced it will not attend this session, viewing it as a historical distortion intended to undermine April 25th. Last year, when the parliament held the first solemn session for November 25th, the PCP had also refused to attend.
Unlike last year’s November 25th session, where all guests were seated in the galleries, this time the main institutional guests, including the presidents of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Justice, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, and the Attorney General, will be seated in the semicircle of the chamber, akin to the April 25th sessions.
The number of floral arrangements will also be similar to that of April 25th, as will the exterior decoration of the Assembly of the Republic, featuring banners and flags on the facade.
Before the solemn session, there will be a military parade in Praça do Comércio, Lisbon, as held for the 50th anniversary of April 25th, presided over by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. In this event, only the PS from the left-wing parties with parliamentary seats will participate, as all other parties have indicated they will not attend.
A provisional schedule released by the Ministry of Defense states that speeches at the parade will be delivered by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and Lieutenant General Alípio Tomé Pinto, president of the government-created commission organizing the 50th anniversary of November 25th.
The equivalence between the commemorations of the 50th anniversaries of April 25th and November 25th has sparked controversy, with the left accusing the right of trying to equate the incomparable and devalue April 25th.
The PS declined to join the government-established commission for these commemorations, arguing it conceals “the central role” of Mário Soares and aims to “create a narrative of confrontation and polarization,” choosing instead to organize its own commemorative program.
At 9:00 pm at Largo do Rato, the PS will hold a session to commemorate the date during a National Political Commission meeting, where the party’s secretary-general, José Luís Carneiro, Mário Soares’ daughter, Isabel Soares, and Colonel Manuel Pedroso Marques, who was president of RTP’s Board of Directors on November 25, 1975, will speak.
