After the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, announced on Thursday night that he intends to dissolve parliament and call early legislative elections for 18 May, deputies met today for a plenary session dedicated exclusively to votes.

The objective was to try to close several diplomas that were still in hand before the dissolution, which led to the initiatives expiring.

The President of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, said he had information that parliament would be dissolved on Wednesday, with effect from Thursday, but stated that he would clarify this information during the afternoon and notify the parties.

For almost three hours, parliamentarians went through a 41-page main script and fourteen supplementary scripts.

Most of the supplementary plans were not voted on, as they included initiatives that some parties wanted to vote on in detail and finalise, but did not reach a consensus – with the PSD and CDS always voting against this intention.

This was the case with initiatives on the rights of domestic workers, projects on the guarantee fund for food owed to minors, support for victims of domestic violence, the extension of the subsidised housing credit scheme to members of the household who live with a person with a disability, or the extension of the initial parental leave, processes that have now fallen by the wayside.

In the case of extending the initial parental leave to six months paid at 100%, Livre, BE, PCP and PAN wanted to make oral voting statements in the hemicycle, after having seen their intention to finalise the ‘dossier’ blocked by PSD and CDS-PP, but this was not possible after the parliamentary leader of CDS, Paulo Núncio, warned that as a rule, statements are not made when voting on a request.

In this marathon, and despite many requests having been rejected, the deputies still managed to close some diplomas: the elimination of inequalities in the granting of the additional fixation to prison agents of the autonomous regions, a compensation regime for displaced teachers and the possibility of foster families being able to adopt.

In most initiatives, the parties also requested exemption from the final wording and the deadline for complaints regarding approved initiatives, in order to speed up the legislative process.