The project – the site “Azoreans in the World” – follows the publication of the Regional Legislative Decree no. 18/2019/A, of 5 August , which creates the Azorean Diaspora Council (CDA) and establishes that CDA shall be composed, apart from other members, of “the councilors representative of the various geographical areas in the Azorean diaspora” (article 4, section 1, paragraph d) .
These councilors shall be responsible for representing and defending their communities’ interests before the Government of the Autonomous Region of the Azores.
Thus, this platform online seeks to bring all the Azoreans living outside the Azores archipelago closer together, and to involve them in the democratic process of participation and in the exercise of an active citizenship when taking the decision in the election of their communities’ representatives, according to the geographical area they live in.
The site will allow the enrolment of every Azorean resident outside the archipelago of the Azores, enabling them to run for councilors, to vote and to elect the councilors for their geographical area of residence.
In total, nineteen Azorean Diaspora Councilors will be elected for a term of 4 years in this electoral process, regulated by a Government of the Azores’s ordinance.
The councilors the Azoreans in the diaspora will elect are distributed among geographical areas where the Azorean presence is more expressive: one representative of Bermuda, five representatives of the United States, five of Canada, five of Brazil, one of Uruguay, one of the national territory, outside the Autonomous Region of the Azores, and another of the rest of the world.
The project “Azoreans in the World” shall be carried out in stages and those enrolled in the site shall be notified of the various moments.