The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, is expected to call the parties with seats in the Azores parliament to a meeting in Belém this following Monday if the Plan and Budget are rejected, Antena 1 (RDP-Portuguese national public radio station) announced yesterday.
The agenda for the meeting has not been disclosed, but all indications are that it will be related to the probable rejection of the Plan and Budget, which began to be debated in Parliament on Monday.
In fact, yesterday afternoon, the Azores Parliament began debating the Regional Government’s Plan and Budget proposals for 2024, the last of this legislature, under the threat of being rejected by the opposition and even by parties supporting the Executive.
The documents, which define the strategic lines of the coalition government (PSD, CDS-PP, and PPM) for next year, also need the approval of the members of parliament from Chega, the Liberal Initiative, and the independent member of parliament (ex-Chega), who in the first three years of this mandate consistently voted in favor, alongside the three parties that make up the Executive, led by social democrat José Manuel Bolieiro.
This year, however, on the eve of the debate, the only member of parliament from IL, Nuno Barata, publicly announced that he would vote against the documents, claiming that the government had failed to implement many of the initiatives to which he had committed with his party.


When confronted by journalists, the only member of parliament from Chega, José Pacheco, also criticized the right-wing government in the archipelago, admitting the possibility of abstaining from voting on the documents, as did Pedro Neves, the only member of parliament from PAN, who last year voted in favor alongside the right-wing parties.
PS and BE, who together have 27 MPs, one more than the three government parties (PSD, CDS-PP, and PPM), are expected to vote against the Plan and Budget proposals, as they have done since the beginning of this legislature, a result which, added to IL’s vote against, could lead to the documents being voted down.
José Manuel Bolieiro has already appealed to the reasonableness of the parties that are now threatening to vote against, criticizing those causing “political instability” in the region, but the challenge seems to have come too late to reverse the vote of some Parliamentarians.
If the proposed Plan and Budget for 2024 are not approved, the right-wing government will have to maintain the budget approved the previous year on a twelfths basis, as stated in Article 15 of the Budgetary Framework Law for the Autonomous Region of the Azores (Law 79/98).
The same law also sets a 90-day deadline for the Regional Government to submit a second budget to Parliament, which MPs must discuss 45 days after it is submitted to the Azores Legislative Assembly.
However, the law in question does not say what happens in the event of a second rejection of the Regional Plan and Budget. The Rules of Procedure of the Assembly and the Political-Administrative Statute of the Azores provide for the fall of the government only in the event of the approval of a motion of censure or the rejection of a vote of confidence or if the President of the Republic decides to dissolve the regional parliament, as happened with the Assembly of the Republic.
In this case, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa could argue that the understanding of the right that allowed this government to be formed in the Azores no longer exists today and that it is necessary to give the word back to the voters.

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In 2020, the PS, which had governed the Azores for 24 years, won the regional legislative elections but lost its absolute majority in the regional parliament. The PSD, CDS-PP, and PPM formed a coalition and, with parliamentary agreements with Chega (then with two deputies) and Iniciativa Liberal (one deputy), the leader of PSD/Açores was appointed president of the regional government, enjoying an absolute majority in the chamber.
The Legislative Assembly of the Azores is made up of 57 deputies and, in the current legislature, 25 are from the PSD, 21 from the PSD, three from the CDS-PP, two from the PPM, two from the BE, one from the Liberal Initiative, one from the PAN, one from Chega and one deputy is independent (elected by Chega).
The documents now being debated in Parliament were presented yesterday afternoon by the President of the Government, José Manuel Bolieiro, an unusual practice, as it is usually the Secretary of Finaances who does so.

in Diário dos Açores, Osvaldo Cabral-director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Cultures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance)  at California State University, Fresno.