"The Left Bloc ran a combative campaign in these elections for the Autonomous Region of Madeira, we had returned to parliament in the last regional elections. Our goal was to maintain that representation, that goal was not met, the Left Bloc had a poor result in these elections", acknowledged Mariana Mortágua.

The Left Bloc coordinator spoke to journalists at the party's national headquarters in Lisbon, considering that after the suffrage in Madeira, the region is facing a "scenario of enormous instability" in government.

The Left Bloc leader congratulated Juntos Pelo Povo (JPP) for its growth and regretted what she classified as a "defeat for the left", after the Left Bloc and CDU (a coalition that brings together the PCP and the Ecologist Party "Os Verdes") lost their representation in the Regional Legislative Assembly of Madeira.

"It is the first time in the regional parliament [of Madeira] that the parties to the left of the PS do not have any parliamentary representation", she stressed, adding that this should "obviously motivate reflection".

Rejecting making national readings of a regional result, Mariana Mortágua considered that the Left Bloc had "run a combative campaign" and guaranteed that the party will "continue to fight and work to build this political alternative in the autonomous region of Madeira".

"The Left Bloc is committed to continuing to work and to assume itself as an alternative because we know that it is necessary. It is so necessary to fight for housing, for transparency, against corruption, we have always done so and we will certainly continue to do so with the same determination that we have done so far", she assured.

In Mariana Mortágua's view, the autonomous region of Madeira "has had its own very particular characteristics in its political situation over the last few months".

"The fall of Miguel Albuquerque's government, but a hegemony of the right that we know and that is old, and that also explains in some way why the right still manages to maintain this power, but that gives rise to a scenario of enormous instability, we do not know what will happen tomorrow", she stressed.

According to information made available by the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Administration, the Left Bloc today obtained 1.41% of the votes in the regional elections of Madeira, counting a total of 1,912 ballots.

In 2023, the party obtained 3,036 votes (2.24%), returning to the parliament of Madeira with the deputy Roberto Almada, after in 2019 it had not elected any regional representation.

The PSD today won the early regional legislative elections of Madeira, failing by five deputies to obtain an absolute majority, when all the parishes have been counted, according to provisional official data.

According to information made available by the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Administration, the social democrats obtained 36.13% of the votes and 19 seats in the regional parliament, made up of a total of 47 deputies.

In second place, the PS obtained 11 elected representatives, followed by the JPP, with nine, the Chega, with four, the CDS-PP, with two, and the IL and the PAN, with one deputy each. The BE and the CDU leave the Legislative Assembly, in relation to the previous composition.

An absolute majority requires 24 seats.

These elections took place eight months after the last regional legislative elections, after the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, dissolved the Madeiran parliament, following the political crisis triggered in January, when the leader of the Regional Government (PSD/CDS-PP), Miguel Albuquerque, was constituted as an accused in a process in which suspicions of corruption are being investigated.

The PSD has always governed in the archipelago and won with an absolute majority in 11 elections, between 1976 and 2015.

[News updated at 11:20 pm]

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