António José Seguro has the broad support of the Socialist Party, he has grassroots activists, the party’s district representatives, but not a presidential campaign full of illustrious figures behind him. It was like that from the beginning, it has been like that until the end. During the day, at Lusófona and DNA Cascais saw some deputies such as André Rijo, Miguel Costa Matos and Davide Amado flank him and parliamentary representation grew at the night rally.
However, the position of equidistance that he says he has and wants to maintain in Belém is a dominant note. And this makes it more natural for many of the party’s main figures to step aside. Especially because the electoral results from the 2025 Legislatures are still present and could limit a result for the presidential candidate himself. This is why party leaders from PAN, Livre, Bloco de Esquerda and PCP, who had all expressed public support, were not present at the last event in Lisbon this Thursday.
But the usual and prominent PS figures are not present. Starting with the general secretary of the PS, José Luís Carneiro, who may appear on Friday at an initiative in Porto, or by president Carlos César. The mobilization for the first round also took place in a street where Prata Roque, Duarte Cordeiro or Alexandra Leitão were with them. Names such as Mariana Vieira da Silva, Ana Catarina Mendes, Marta Temido, who were named as future candidates for the position of party leader, or former leader António Costa or Pedro Nuno Santos did not appear in the campaign.
At the rally at Forum Lisbon, Duarte Cordeiro and Alexandra Leitão, ministers of António Costa, were the biggest names to be present. Guilherme de Oliveira Martins, former Minister of Education and Finance, spoke, defending Seguro’s role “in defending the Constitution”, pointing out that Ventura calls into question “a future direct election of the President of the Republic.”
João Soares was with Seguro from the beginning, the former Minister of Health Adalberto Campos Fernandes was also present, with several current and former presidents of Lisbon parish councils, a dozen deputies from the current Parliament and also Carla Tavares, European deputy, and Maria de Belém, former minister and president of the party having supported Seguro in the direct against Costa.
Seguro moves towards civil society, this Thursday the independent councilor of Cascais João Maria Jonet accompanied him, he received greetings from Diogo Feio, former deputy of the CDS-PP. Large Social Democrats and many of the supporters who were with Gouveia and Melo are in favor of Seguro, but did not join the campaign.
Leave a Reply