Mário Passos takes office next Sunday, October 10, as the seventh Mayor of Vila Nova de Famalicão of the III Republic, succeeding Paulo Cunha who has held the post since 2013.
The Municipal Assembly of taking office of members elected to the City Council and Municipal Assembly is scheduled for 16:30, in the Casa das Artes of Vila Nova de Famalicão, this being chaired by the president of the re-elected Assembly, Nuno Melo. In the session will be sworn in the 11 councillors who will compose the municipal executive: seven elected by the Coalition Social Democratic Party (PSD) / Democratic and Social Centre - Popular Party (CDS-PP) and four elected by the Socialist Party (PS).
For the Municipal Assembly, around 35 elected members take office: 20 from the PSD/CDS-PP Coalition, 13 from the PS, one from Chega and one from the United Democratic Coalition (CDU). Also part of the Assembly are the 34 presidents of the parish councils who, together with the elected members, will elect the first and second secretary of the Assembly in this first session of the new municipal cycle.
It should be noted that Mário Passos won the elections for the City Council with 52, 88% of the votes, having deserved the direct confidence of 40.143 famalicense voters. The newly elected president was born in the parish of Nine in 1966 and graduated, in 1991, in Physics and Chemistry, from the University of Minho (UM). In that same year, he joined the disciplinary group of the Chemistry Department of the School of Sciences of UM, thus starting his academic career as a trainee assistant.
In 1994, he took his Pedagogical Aptitude and Scientific Capacity Tests and started his PhD tests, in the mentioned university, in cooperation with the John Innes Centre Research Park Institute, Norwich, England, concluding his PhD in Sciences in 1998, becoming Assistant Professor.
He was President of the Internship Committee of the Physics and Chemistry Degree and secretary of the Internship Coordinating Committee of the same university. He also integrated the Mission Group for the Quality of Teaching/Learning and participated in the organization of lectures, seminars and congresses.
In 2004, the XV Constitutional Government of the Portuguese Republic invites Mário Passos, to be the Regional Delegate of Braga of the Portuguese Youth Institute. During this period, he implemented and developed several programs, directed to young people and to the associative tissue of the district of Braga, in themes such as employability, innovation, entrepreneurship, associativism, volunteering, among others.
In 2009, he was elected Councillor of the City Council of Vila Nova de Famalicão, where he remains until the present date, having held positions in around ten departments of local government.