David Santos has decided to stay on as president of the Algarve’s Commission for Coordination and Regional Development (CCDR) despite having been elected as head of the region’s Social Democratic Party.
David Santos was elected president of the Social Democratic Party for the Algarve last Saturday, but refuses to stand down from his well remunerated CCDR role despite the clear conflict of interests.
The regional Socialist Party believes that David Santos should quit as he can not run the CCRD as a non-political regional body while president of a political party.
David Santos says that he will continue at the CCDR because he got the job following a national public contest in which there were ten candidates selected and interviewed by the Commission for Recruitment in Public Administration.
The revelation that there was a seletion process is a surpising as it is welcome but no reason to keep a job for which integrity relies on a non-political stance.
However, the socialists point out that "in a similar situation in the past, those appointed to run the local Socialist Party have offered their resignation to whichever government is in office.”
Santos won more than 90% of the votes cast and was the vice president of the PSD in the Algarve. He takes over from Luís Gomes who had reached the limit of three terms.
