Mónica Quintela (born 1967) is a Portuguese politician. A member of the centre-right

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

(PSD), Quintela was first elected to the Assembly of the Republic in 2019 as a representative of the

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...

constituency.

Early life and education

Mónica Cláudia de Castro Quintela was born on 14 July 1967. She studied law at 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 ...

between 1986 and 1991.

Career

Quintela worked as a lawyer from 1994. She married Rui Manuel Portugal da Silva Leal, who is also a lawyer. Between 2014 and 2017 she was a member of the general council of the

Portuguese Bar Association The Order of Attorneys of Portugal (), also known as the Portuguese Bar Association, is the public association to which all attorneys-at-law belong in Portugal, founded in 1926. Its early origins are found on a private association founded in 18 ...

Political career

In 2019 Quintela was chosen to be head of the list of PSD candidates for the

constituency in the

national election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections ...

and was elected to be a deputy in the Assembly of the Republic. In the January 2022 national election, called by the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

prime minister,

António Costa António Luís Santos da Costa (; born 17 July 1961) is a Portuguese lawyer and politician who has served as President of the European Council since 2024. He previously served as the 118th prime minister of Portugal from 2015 to 2024 and th ...

, following the failure of left-wing parties to support his budget, Quintela was again first on the PSD list for Coimbra and was duly re-elected. The PSD won three of the available nine seats for Coimbra. During her first term in the Assembly, Quintela was vice-president of the parliamentary committee on the verification of elected deputies. In her re-election campaign she called for measures to improve birth rates in Portugal, such as improved maternity hospitals and more day-care centres. Criticising the country’s bureaucracy, she argued for more rapid digitalization of administrative functions. She also argued for a decentralization of government services.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quintela, Mónica 1967 births 21st-century Portuguese women politicians Living people Members of the 14th Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) Members of the 15th Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) Social Democratic Party (Portugal) politicians University of Coimbra alumni Women members of the Assembly of the Republic (Portugal)