The current leader of the PSD/Madeira, Miguel Albuquerque, won the internal elections, defeating his opponent, Manuel António Correia, by 2,246 votes to 1,854, out of 4,388 registered voters, the party secretariat said.
The election took place today in the wake of the political crisis caused by the resignation of Miguel Albuquerque as president of the regional government (PSD/CDS-PP) in January, after he was indicted in a judicial investigation into suspected corruption in the archipelago.
The internal elections took place between 5:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. in the PSD’s municipal and parish offices spread across the 11 municipalities of the Autonomous Region of Madeira, with 4,388 militants able to vote, out of a total of more than 12,000.
This was the second time that Miguel Albuquerque beat Manuel António Correia in an internal dispute for the party presidency, the first having taken place in 2014 to choose the successor to historic leader Alberto João Jardim.
At the time, Albuquerque defeated Manuel António Correia, then regional secretary for the Environment and Natural Resources, in a second round, obtaining around 63% of the votes, and has remained the party’s leader until now, always running again without an opponent in the internal elections.
Miguel Albuquerque, born on May 4, 1961 (62 years old) and a native of Funchal, is a lawyer and has in his political curriculum the presidency of the Funchal City Council (1994-2013) and of the Regional Government of Madeira, since 2015.
She resigned on January 26, after the sole PAN member refused to comply with the parliamentary incidence agreement that guaranteed the PSD/CDS coalition an absolute majority in the Legislative Assembly of Madeira, following the process that investigates suspicions of corruption.
