Social-democratic deputy Ricardo Bastos Sousa, who last year appealed to the Constitutional Court when the national leadership of the PSD blocked his candidacy for the Chamber of Espinho, accusing Luís Montenegro of carrying out “a personal reckoning”, was re-elected president of the council this Saturday. He had two more votes than Carolina Marques, also a deputy and former leader of the Social Democratic Youth of Espinho, who had the support of figures close to the prime minister, including his wife, Carla Montenegro.
Ricardo Bastos Sousa had been elected president of the party in 2024, on a single ticket, but found himself relegated in the following year’s municipal dispute. The PSD preferred to bet on Vítor Ratola, assistant to the prime minister and former vice-president of the Chamber of Aveiro, who ended up elected president of the Chamber of Espinho, defeating socialist Luís Canelas, after the leadership of Pedro Nuno Santos decided not to run for acting president Maria Manuel Cruz. The mayor, who led a citizens’ movement, had replaced Miguel Reis, who resigned after finding himself involved in the Operation Vortexfacing accusations of corruption related to real estate projects and urban licensing, just like the social democrat Pinto Moreira, his predecessor at the head of the municipality.
Faced with accusations of direct intervention by Luís Montenegro made by the now re-elected municipal leader of Espinho, the social-democratic district of Aveiro assured that the choice of Jorge Ratola was due to “enormous human, professional and political qualities” that he considered “widely recognized by PSD activists and everyone who knows him”. And he highlighted that Ricardo Bastos Sousa was the only one to vote against this decision at the meeting of the district political commission.
When announcing that he would seek a second term, Ricardo Bastos Sousa assured that “it was not a candidacy against anyone”, but rather “a candidacy for democracy and the autonomy of the council”. But he did not forget that, in the first term, “we were not given the autonomy that the municipality of Espinho has always had, for more than 50 years”.
His opponent, Carolina Marques, presented herself with a “sense of responsibility and commitment to the party”advocating “a more united, more mobilizing and closer PSD”.
The internal social-democratic dispute in Espinho also had controversy on social media, as the municipal coordinator of the PSD, Pedro Alves (who was elected president of the municipal council of Viseu this Saturday), commented “if you were ashamed, you would stay quiet” in the publication in which Ricardo Bastos Sousa announced his re-candidacy for the councilleading him to respond that he would not bend, “no matter how vile the threats, no matter how unacceptable the pressure”.
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