"Tonight, PAN [People-Animals-Nature] managed to re-elect a deputy once again. We will continue to have an active voice in the Regional Legislative Assembly. Our commitment will always be to the people of Madeira and Porto Santo," said Mónica Freitas, who was re-elected as a deputy in the early regional elections in Madeira today.

Mónica Freitas, who was speaking at the party's headquarters in Funchal, was reacting to the results of the early regional legislative elections in Madeira, which gave the PSD a victory without an absolute majority and the re-election of a PAN deputy.

According to the provisional results released by the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI), the PPD-PSD (19 deputies), the PS (11 deputies), the JPP (which rose to nine deputies), Chega (four deputies), the CDS-PP (two deputies) and the IL and PAN (both with one representative each) continue to have parliamentary representation.

In a celebratory speech, alongside the party's national spokesperson, Inês Sousa Real, the elected PAN/Madeira deputy declined to speak about post-electoral understandings, emphasising only that there is "openness" for dialogue.

"We must be a party of openness, dialogue, and construction, talking to everyone, leaving no one aside and, above all, always thinking about what is best for our region," she said.

The PSD won the early regional legislative elections in Madeira today, missing an absolute majority by five deputies, according to provisional official data, with all the parishes counted.

According to information provided 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, which consists of a total of 47 deputies.

In second place, the PS won 11 seats, followed by the JPP with nine, Chega with four, the CDS-PP with two, and the IL and PAN with one deputy each. The BE and the CDU will leave the Legislative Assembly compared to the previous composition.

Last year, in the previous regional elections, the PSD and the CDS-PP, which ran as a coalition, elected 23 deputies, so the Social Democrats signed an agreement for parliamentary incidence with the sole PAN deputy.

Fourteen candidacies contested the 47 seats in the regional parliament, in a single electoral district: ADN, BE, PS, Livre, IL, RIR, CDU (PCP/PEV), Chega, CDS-PP, MPT, PSD, PAN, PTP and JPP.

Today's early elections took place eight months after the most recent 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 named a defendant in a process in which suspicions of corruption are being investigated.

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