PSD National Council discusses electoral results and presidential candidacies

The PSD National Council will meet Thursday for the first time since the legislatures that gave AD victory to analyze the political situation. At the meeting will also be voted for support for the presidential candidacy of Marques Mendes.

In the Council will be analyzed the electoral results of the Legislatures of May 18, which dictated a reinforcement of AD in votes and mandates, but far from an absolute majority.

The result immediately dictated the resignation of the socialist leader, Pedro Nuno Santos. Whether the interim secretary of the PS-party president Carlos César-wants the sole candidate for leadership, José Luís Carneiro, have already signaled that the socialists will enable the entry into functions of the XXV Constitutional Government.

The liberal initiative (IL) has announced that it will advance with a constitutional revision project – which will automatically trigger a revision process – an idea supported by the arrival, which challenged the PSD and liberal leaders to a previous understanding in this matter.

These three parties together have more than two thirds of the deputies, but also the sum of PSD, PS and IL parliamentarians allows this majority.

PSD President and Prime Minister Luís Montenegro have been silent since the election night, and has not even made statements to journalists in the first hearing with the President of the Republic, two days after the elections.

In the election night, he read the results as a vote of confidence as a prime minister, in the government and the political project of the AD, promising dialogue, but asking for responsibility for « the oppositions. »

On Thursday, Montenegro will be heard again by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and may be appointed on this occasion again Prime Minister, even before arriving at the party’s National Council.

According to the call of the maximum agency of the PSD between congresses, the meeting will also have in the order of work, in addition to the analysis of the political situation, the “support for candidacy for president”.

Although the call does not refer to any name, several PSD leaders, including Luís Montenegro, have made it clear that they will propose to the party support to their former leader Luís Marques Mendes, who presented the candidacy in early February for the January presidential elections next year.

The PSD National Council, scheduled for 21h00 in a hotel in Lisbon, will be held a few hours after Admiral Henrique Gouveia and Melo officially present his candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic, an initiative scheduled for 19h00 at Gare Marítim de Alcântara, Lisbon.

According to the PSD statutes, it is up to the National Council to “approve the proposals regarding the support for a candidacy for the President of the Republic”.

In the last presidential presidential, the PSD approved, in the direction of Rui Rio, the support of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa Belém in September 2020, even before he had announced it, a motion that passed without votes against (61 in favor and nine abstentions).