The CNE and CC are giving parties the wrong dates to submit candidates for the 9 October elections. The law approved by parliament three weeks ago, on 30 April, has still not been approved by the President and officially published in Boletim da República (BR). And the CNE and CC are so obsessed with secrecy that they refuse to say the calendar will be changed as soon as the law is published. The CNE continues to insist that candidates for national parliament (Assembleia da República, AR) must be submitted by 10 June, the old date, even though the AR said this should be 25 June. The Constitutional Council repeats the same 10 June date for presidential candidates.

Indeed, dates published by the CNE are now a mix of new and old, creating total confusion.

The new laws specify that all candidates lists must be submitted 106 days before the election, 25 June. But the old laws required candidates lists 120 days before for AR elections (10 June) which is the date cited by the CNE, but only 90 days before provincial assembly elections (11 July), which is never mentioned by the CNE. Perhaps this is because no one can figure out how to reduce the time to present candidates lists by 16 days.

The number of candidates which parties must submit depends on the number of assembly seats which in turn depends of registration which in turn was delayed to be after the rainy season. In the old law, still in force, the required number of seats must be published 180 days before the election (which passed while registration was still under way). The new law sets 120 days (10 June).