The mayor of Albufeira, Rui Cristina, said yesterday, 22 September, that he will not request a judicial inquiry into the discrimination and incitement to hatred case presented against him by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and will instead choose to defend himself at court.
“Today is the deadline for requesting the opening of the judicial inquiry into the case in which I am accused of discrimination and incitement to hatred against the Roma community, and I have made a clear decision: I will not request this optional stage. Instead, I will contest the charges at trial, because I do not shy away from scrutiny and I will not bow my head,” the mayor, who was elected as part of the populist right-wing Chega party, said in a video posted on his social media accounts.
The charges stem from comments made by Cristina during a municipal assembly meeting on 26 November 2025, when councillors were discussing housing and municipal land in the Faro district municipality.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Rui Cristina, in his capacity as mayor of Albufeira, said that “by his choice, the municipality would not spend money, in the area of housing, on a particular group of local citizens belonging to a particular minority ethnic group”.
According to the prosecution, the remarks placed that group in a secondary position compared with other residents of the municipality when it came to meeting their housing needs, “justifying that position by stating that the minority group does not pay taxes”.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office alleges that the mayor “acted with the intention of offending the honour and reputation” of members of the ethnic community, broadly accusing them of evading their tax responsibilities and seeking to demean and discriminate against them in access to housing.
“I do not accept an accusation that I consider deeply unfair, because I have never intended to offend or discriminate against the Roma community, or anyone else, because of their origin,” the mayor said in yesterday’s statement.
Cristina argued that he had merely defended “an elementary principle of justice” by maintaining that “public support should be allocated according to need, on the basis of fair, transparent and equal criteria for everyone”.
The Albufeira mayor also said that “defending equal criteria for everyone is not hatred”, but rather “justice, equality and inclusion”. He said he had decided not to request the judicial inquiry stage and would proceed directly to trial, where he would present “the facts” and “the context” of his defence.
“(…) I respect justice, but respect does not mean silence, and defending oneself does not mean submission. An accusation is not a conviction. And if anyone expected me to bow my head, abandon my principles or stop fighting for a fairer Albufeira, they were mistaken,” the mayor said.
Rui Cristina also vowed to “face this case with my head held high” and said he would continue to “govern for everyone, without exception”.
Rui Cristina took office as mayor of Albufeira on 4 November 2025, after being elected in October with 40.51% of the vote, ending several decades of municipal government by the PSD/CDS-PP coalition.
His victory in Albufeira marked Chega’s entry into local government in the Faro district, after the party won the 2024 and 2025 parliamentary elections in the Algarve.
Source: LUSA
Photo credit: Algarve Primeiro
