Macau (MNA) – The Macau Lawyers Association (AAM) will elect its ruling body on Tuesday at 6:00 pm, with the unopposed electoral list of current President Jorge Neto Valente to be elected.
Valente has headed the AAM virtually unopposed since 1995, but this year saw his more than 20 years long leadership being challenged for the first time, after lawyer Sérgio de Almeida Correia announced he was running for the position in September.
However in October the lawyer dropped out from the elections after a heated public debate between the two candidates and with Correia stating Valente had made a ‘series of declarations’ and ‘attacks’ he believed to be designed to discredit him.
During the campaign Valente commented that Correia’s views were “radical” and that his candidacy was stirring up anti-Portuguese sentiment between the Chinese members of the AAM, even hinting that a Chinese candidate was pondering to run for the position if Correia maintained his candidacy.
After his decision to drop out, Correia also criticised the AAM President for his continuity in the position since the 1990’s and for using his position to attack an alternative candidacy.
Valente presented an electoral co-signed by some 200 lawyers, about half of the AAM members, with the candidacy to maintain Rui Cunha as head of the Supervisory Board and Philip Xavier as president of the General Assembly.
