The Constitutional Court ruling dismissed the appeal from the party whose candidate lists for the Council, Municipal Assembly, and Parish Assembly of Rio Maior, in the district of Santarém, had been rejected by the Rio Maior Court.
An order issued on August 21 by the Rio Maior Court justified the rejection of the Council list because the third candidate, Dayane Túlio, was not a native of Rio Maior as stated in the voter certificate, and her citizen card number was expired.
“The candidate is originally from Brazil, and the necessary documents were not provided: a formal declaration specifying nationality; a certificate of habitual residence in national territory; the last residence in the state of origin; a certificate of non-deprivation of electoral capacity in the state of origin; a residency authorization for at least two years. Declarations of candidacy acceptance and commitment of honor were also missing,” states the order.
The list for the Municipal Assembly was found lacking voter certificates for any of the candidates, as was the case with the Parish Assembly list of Rio Maior.
For the latter, the order also noted that the lead candidate, of Brazilian nationality with an expired citizen card, failed to submit documentation pertaining to a foreign citizen.
The party’s representative was notified on August 21 (Thursday) of the order, which set a three-day deadline for the submission of the documents.
As the deadline expired on Sunday, the 24th, the court extended it to Monday, the 25th, but the documents were only submitted on Tuesday, the 26th, one day late, resulting in the rejection of all lists.
The party appealed to the Constitutional Court, arguing “just cause” because one of the parish offices required to issue the documents was closed in the afternoon of the 22nd.
According to the Council top candidate, Alexandre Costa, this “prevented the documents from being submitted on time, although they were only a few hours late,” he told Agência Lusa.
In the ruling issued on Tuesday, the Constitutional Court deemed the Chega appeal unjustified, stating that “not all irregularities depended on the actions of the Parish Council, hence the reasons cited do not justify, in any case, the delay in the submission of personal documents, residency documentation, declarations of acceptance, and commitments of honor, elements not covered by the argument presented by the appellant.”
The National Election Commission confirmed to Agência Lusa that “the appeal to the Constitutional Court is the last legally foreseen instance to contest the candidacy rejections, and this facility has already been used by the candidacy,” therefore Chega is prevented from running in the Rio Maior council in the upcoming municipal elections on October 12.
“This is not the outcome we were expecting,” Alexandre Costa told Lusa, expressing regret “that justice and the system function in this way.”
In the upcoming municipal elections, the candidates competing for the Rio Maior Council include Ana Esperança (CDU), Miguel Paulo (PS), the incumbent president of the executive, Luís Filipe Santana Dias (PSD/CDS-PP), and Luís Caetano (Livre).
The council is led by the coalition Juntos pelo Futuro (PSD/CDS-PP), which in the last municipal elections elected the president and four councilors. The PS has two councilors without assigned portfolios in the executive.
