The head of the PS list for Madeira’s early parliamentary elections, Paulo Cafôfo, argued today that the voters’ choice should be between himself and the Social Democrat Miguel Albuquerque, the outgoing president of Madeira’s executive.
“On May 26, the choice is clear: either people want me to be president of the Regional Government or they want Miguel Albuquerque to be president of the Regional Government. These are the only two options,” said the PS/Madeira leader.
Paulo Cafôfo was speaking to journalists after handing over the list of candidates for the early elections – 47 full members and 47 alternates – at the Madeira Judicial Court in Funchal, considering that it is “congregating, comprehensive” and includes experienced and competent people.
The Socialist insisted that the choice on election day is between the PSD, “which has been in power for almost 50 years, which is falling rotten, which is tied up, trapped in a web of interests”, and the PS, “which has solutions, ideas, innovation in what it wants to propose to solve problems that have existed for too long”.
“It has to be said that the time of absolute majorities is over, there are no more absolute majorities and, in this context in which there are no more absolute majorities, there are opposition parties that say they want change, but that at the first opportunity and on election night itself will be willing to make a deal with the PSD,” he stressed, specifying that he was referring to Chega, Iniciativa Liberal, CDS-PP and PAN.
For Paulo Cafôfo, by voting for these parties “the voters will be wanting Miguel Albuquerque to continue at the head of the Regional Government”, reiterating that, “for this reason, the only option will be the Socialist Party”.
Asked about a story published today in the print edition of Correio da Manhã, which reports that the judicial authorities have frozen 170,000 euros belonging to Miguel Albuquerque’s wife, who tried to move the money three days after the PJ raids, Cafôfo declined to comment.
“I have no comment to make, neither on newspaper headlines nor on other situations that have appeared in the media today. My only focus is on the solutions we want to present to the people of Madeira,” he said.
The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, dissolved Madeira’s parliament and called early elections for May 26 following the political crisis caused by the investigation into suspected corruption in the archipelago.
The regional government, a PSD/CDS-PP coalition with the parliamentary support of PAN, has been in administration since the beginning of February. The president of the executive, the Social Democrat Miguel Albuquerque, resigned from his post after being made a defendant in the case and after PAN withdrew its political confidence in him.
