Cecília Felgueiras de Meireles Graça (born 29 May 1977) is a Portuguese politician and lawyer, and a former member of the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal, representing the

Christian democratic Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well ...

CDS – People's Party The CDS – People's Party (, derived from ''Centro Democrático e Social – Partido Popular'', CDS–PP)

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

constituency.

Early life

Cecília Felgueiras de Meireles Graça was born in

Cedofeita Cedofeita () is a former civil parish in the municipality of Porto, Portugal. In 2013, the parish merged into the new parish Cedofeita, Santo Ildefonso, Sé, Miragaia, São Nicolau e Vitória. The population in 2011 was 22,077, in an area of .

in the Porto municipality on 29 May 1977. She was the first of three daughters of José Maria Ferreira de Meireles Graça and Maria Henriqueta Guimarães Jordão Felgueiras. She graduated in Law from the Faculty of Law of the

University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; , ) is a Public university, public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537. The university ...

and then obtained an MBA from the School of Management of the

University of Porto The University of Porto (''Universidade do Porto'') is a Portuguese public research university located in Porto, and founded on 22 March 1911. It is the second largest Portuguese university by number of enrolled students, after the University ...

Business School (UPBS). She then worked as a legal advisor to Porto City Council until 2009.

Political career

Meireles was first elected as Deputy to the Assembly of the Republic in 2009, representing the CDS-PP. She was re-elected in 2011, 2015 and 2019, always for the Porto constituency on the CDS-PP list. She is vice-president of the CDS-PP parliamentary group. In parliament she has been on the Budget and Finance committee and vice-president of the Agriculture and Sea committee, as well as on various working groups. Between 2011 and 2015 she served as Secretary of State for Tourism, when the CDS-PP was part of a

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

headed by

Pedro Passos Coelho Pedro Manuel Mamede Passos Coelho (; born 24 July 1964) is a Portuguese people, Portuguese politician and university guest lecturer who was the List of prime ministers of Portugal, 117th prime minister of Portugal, in office from 2011 to 201 ...

. Meireles has also served as a member of the Municipal Assembly of Porto and the Parish Assembly of Ramalde. In 2020 she was the focus of some controversy within her party after a proposal was made by the party's vice-president that she should resign her seat in the Assembly to make way for the leader of the CDS-PP, Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos. Santos was elected leader of the party in January 2020 but did not have a seat in the Assembly. He had been second on the party's list for Porto in the 2019 elections but only Meireles, top of the list, was elected. If she had resigned, Santos would have automatically taken her place. However, she had, at the same time, been criticising the leadership of Santos. She was not included in the CDS-PP list of candidates for the 2022 election, in which the party performed poorly.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meireles, Cecília 1977 births Living people Government ministers of Portugal Women government ministers of Portugal Members of the Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) Women members of the Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) CDS – People's Party politicians