“My mission has been accomplished; my conscience is clear”
The Mayor of Vila Nova de Gaia, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues, who was sentenced to loss of office for the crime of embezzlement, has announced that he will present his resignation in June.
At a press conference today, he said: “I feel that my mission has been accomplished and my conscience is clear. Therefore, I hereby announce that I will be submitting my resignation from my mandate together with the submission of the Consolidated Accounts Report, in mid-June.
“I will thus conclude my work and that of my team with the complete municipal financial report, leaving the Consolidated Municipal Accounts document to be compared with the pitiful state in which I received the council and the municipal public treasury”, he added.
In a decision announced on Monday, the Constitutional Court (TC) confirmed the loss of mandate of Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues (PS), over the improper use of a car from the municipality. It was this ‘improper use’ that saw him condemned for the crime of embezzlement.
The decision followed an appeal filed by the mayor to the Constitutional Court, after Porto’s Court of Appeal upheld an earlier sentence (handed down in November, 2023) decreeing the loss of mandate.
In other words, the appeals process has ensured that Rodrigues stayed in place as mayor until practically the end of the life-span of the council (municipal elections are due at the end of the summer).
A source from the mayor’s defence team has added that he will still be filing a complaint over the Constitutional Court ruling, which this time will be assessed at a conference of the court.
Today the mayor vowed: “I will continue to fight for the truth, to appeal until I obtain the justice I deserve.”
“But, having arrived here, I no longer wait for the final results of justice, which may well go beyond the mandate. I had already said that I was considering leaving, and the time has come. I am not leaving politics, nor the struggle. I will continue to participate in spaces of civic intervention, to think, speak and write”, he added.
Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues dubbed the Constitutional Court ruling “unfair and wrong, deserving due challenge to the (court’s) collective, which will be done”.
“Therefore, there is no final judgment on the decision until the final sentence,” he said.
Lusa goes back to November 2023, to recall the contours of this prosecution: “Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues was sentenced by the Court of Vila Nova de Gaia for a crime of embezzlement of use, to the loss of his mandate and to pay a fine of €8,400 for personally using an electric vehicle belonging to the municipality.
“The court also sentenced the mayor’s wife for the same crime to pay a fine of the same amount, with the defendants appealing to the Porto Court of Appeal.
The Porto Court of Appeal reduced the mayor’s fine to €4,800, but kept the sentence of loss of office.
It also acquitted the mayor’s wife of embezzlement, and of her fine, but maintained her conviction regarding “loss of advantage”.
According to public prosecutors, the defendants “decided to use, as if it were their own”, an electric vehicle acquired under a financial leasing arrangement by a municipal company, following a direct adjustment contract signed on October 13, 2017, “through the payment of a monthly rent” of €614.
Elected for the first time in 2013, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues (PS) would have had to end his mayoral mandate in the upcoming municipal elections, anyway – as the law only allows mayors three consecutive terms.
Commenting on this situation over social media, Platforma Gaia com Norte has referred to the “embarrassment” of having a mayor condemned to the loss of his mandate “by the highest court of appeal, the Constitutional Court”.
“Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues’ repeated attempt to ignore reality is not a brilliant reaction, but rather an attempt to hold on to his position”, says the platform, adding that Rodrigues “demonstrates a reprehensible survival instinct, an absence of fear of loss of honour and a great sense of impunity”.
Plataforma Gaia Com Norte adds that at a recent lunch organised by the local PS for the current electoral campaign, “there was no place reserved at the top table for Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues” showing that “not even his comrades want him close”.
Source material: LUSA
