The Portuguese Government announced within the framework of a package of measures targeted at fostering decentralisation the project of electing democraticly the Presidents of the Metropolitan Areas of Porto and Lisbon jointly with the elections for the Executive bodies and of Municipal Assemblies. The idea that generated some controversy has been presented without the support of technical studies, being seen as a bad practice of submitting a theme to public scrutiny and discussion. The Commercial Association of Porto (CAP) asked Quaternaire Portugal to elaborate a White Paper study to identify the strenghts and weaknesses of the direct election, in order to support a public statement to be presented by the institution. The study analyses the state of art of the low level of decentralisation in Portugal, dicusses the constitutional implications of the measure, organises the results of some interviews with political leaders and other personalities and identifies the strenghts and weaknesses of the measure and makes a proposal of criteria and orientations to be followed by the CAP in its public statement.