The official result of the regional legislative elections in the Azores was published today in the Diário da República, confirming the 57 elected deputies, 26 of them from the PSD/CDS-PP/PPM coalition, which won the election without an absolute majority.
According to the map of the National Electoral Commission (CNE) with the final results of the February 4 elections, the abstention rate was 49.70%.
Among the 57 seats to be allocated, the coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) won the majority, with 26 deputies, the Socialist Party (PS) elected 23, Chega (CH) five, and the Left Bloc (BE), Liberal Initiative (IL) and People-Animals-Nature (PAN) elected one deputy each.
Of the 229,909 voters now reported as registered (the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had counted 229,830 two weeks before the vote), 115,655 voted (50.30%).
According to the CNE document, 111,726 votes were validly cast (96.60%), 2,522 were blank (2.18%) and 1,407 were void (1.22%).
The PSD/CDS-PP/PPM coalition obtained 48,672 validly cast votes (43.56%), while the PS totaled 41,538 (37.18%).
Chega had 10,627 votes (9.51%), BE 2,936 (2.63%), IL 2,482 (2.22%) and PAN 1,907 (1.71%).
The other competing political forces failed to elect deputies to the Azorean parliament: CDU – Unity Democratic Coalition, made up of PCP and PEV (1.821 votes, 1.63%), Livre (735 votes, 0.66%), Juntos Pelo Povo (626 votes, 0.56%), Alternativa Democrática Nacional (378 votes, 0.34%) and the Alternativa 21 coalition, made up of MPT – Partido da Terra and Aliança, which got four votes in Santa Maria (0.16% in the island’s constituency).
The distribution of the 57 seats recorded in the final results is the same as that shown in the provisional total results on election day.
Most of the candidates ran in the 10 constituencies (one for each island and a compensation constituency), with the exception of IL (eight constituencies), JPP (six) and the MPT/Aliança coalition (one, after their lists were rejected in the remaining constituencies).
According to Article 81(1) of the Azorean Political-Administrative Statute, “the President of the Regional Government shall be appointed by the representative of the Republic, taking into account the results of the elections to the Legislative Assembly, after hearing the political parties represented therein”.
The chief executive will take office before the Legislative Assembly.
The representative of the Republic for the Azores, Pedro Catarino, plans to listen to the political parties represented in the Chamber on February 19 and 20.
In the 2020 elections – which the PS won, but lost the absolute majority it had held for two decades – the PSD, CDS-PP and PPM, who then ran separately, also managed to elect 26 MPs (PSD 21, CDS-PP three and the PPM two) and ended up forming a government, with parliamentary agreements with Chega and IL.
In November, the abstention of Chega and PAN and the votes against by PS, IL and BE led to the approval of the Azores Budget for this year and, the following month, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, announced the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly and the scheduling of elections.
On April 4, Chega more than doubled its number of MPs, from two to five, while IL kept the seat it won for the first time in 2020.
On the left, the PS won 23 seats, two fewer than in the last regional elections, and the BE lost one of its two MPs.
The PAN once again secured a seat in the regional parliament.
The current president of the regional government and leader of the right-wing coalition, José Manuel Bolieiro (PSD), has stated that he will govern with a relative majority for four years.
The PS announced last week that it will vote against the Regional Government’s Program and Chega said that he is willing to make the document viable if he joins the executive and if the Azorean leaders of the two minority parties in the coalition, CDS and PPM, are left out.
