Last Friday, 7 July, the National Election Commission (CNE) ordered the Vila Real de Santo António Council to remove, "within 48 hours", the posters announcing works carried out by the municipality, as they could "be understood as an intervention of the autarchy in order to promote one candidacy in detriment of others».
In other words, the municipality has until tomorrow, Monday, to remove the posters now considered illegal.
The case had been denounced by Celeste Santos, a candidate for the Left Bloc for the Vila Real de Santo António Council, who made a statement to the CNE about “prohibited institutional advertising” by the Vila Real de Santo António City Council.
Some of these posters, denounced the BE, "were placed together with others from the electoral campaign of the candidate of the political force that has governed the municipality for 12 years", that is, by Conceição Cabrita, head of the PSD's list to the City Council. Guadiana.
In its response to the notification made by the CNE, the Municipal Council of Vila Real de Santo António, in a position signed by the vice-president (and candidate) Conceição Cabrita, defended that «only two of the outdoors concerned were placed after the publication of the decree marking the date of the elections'. He added that "voluntarily the services of the City Council will proceed with the removal", but "the rest outdoors» will remain “in the places where they were placed”.
The CNE, in its deliberation taken at the plenary meeting on 4 July and released three days later, stresses that "public entities are subject, at all stages of the electoral process, to special duties of neutrality and impartiality", under the terms of the Law Electoral of Local Authorities Bodies.
This law provides, in its article 41, that "the bodies (...) of local authorities, as well as, as such, the respective holders, may not intervene, directly or indirectly, in the electoral campaign, nor perform acts that, in any way, , favor or prejudice a candidacy or a proposing entity to the detriment or advantage of another, and must ensure equal treatment and impartiality in any intervention in electoral procedures».
The ultimate goal, argued the CNE, is "to ensure, on the one hand, equal opportunities and treatment between the various candidates and, on the other hand, that there are no outside interferences in the process of forming the will of citizens for free exercise of the right to vote'.
The legislation also aims, maintained the CNE, "to safeguard the practice of acts that, in any way, favor or harm a candidacy to the detriment and/or advantage of others", as well as ensuring the "neutrality" and "impartiality" to which " all public entities are bound”. These obligations are “especially reinforced with the publication, in the Diário da República, of the decree marking the date of the elections”, scheduled for 1 October.
The CNE added that "institutional publicity by State and Public Administration bodies of acts, programs, works or services is also prohibited, except in cases of serious and urgent public need."
For this reason, the CNE decided that the facts reported “may also be understood as an intervention by the municipality in order to promote a candidacy to the detriment of others, thus not guaranteeing the fulfillment of the neutrality and impartiality duties to which all public entities they are obligated'.
Therefore, the National Elections Commission ordered the Mayor of Vila Real de Santo António to "arrange for the removal" of the posters, "within 48 hours, for violation of those duties".
"We will await the fulfillment of the decision", reacted the Blocist candidate Celeste Santos, quoted by Esquerda.net, classifying the decision of the CNE as "a great victory over the arrogance installed in this Chamber".
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