Just over a year after receiving António Costa’s PS battle card, Marta Temido is now debuting as a candidate for an internal party structure. The former health minister, who announced her resignation at the end of August, is number two on Davide Amado’s list for the municipality of Lisbon in the elections of 7 and 8 October.
Davide Amado, who is also president of the parish council of Alcântara, confirmed to DN that Marta Temido is part of the candidacy for what is one of the largest municipal structures in the PS. “It is a privilege for us to have her as a member of the congregation and it is a great honor for us to have her on the lists,” says the socialist mayor. Among the approximately 60 names (and as many deputies) are Inês Drummond (ranked number three), coordinator of the socialist councilors in the municipal council, Manuel Lage, leader of the bank in the municipal council, and presidents of parish councils in the capital such as Jorge Marques (Ajuda), Sofia Dias (Penha de França), Miguel Coelho (Santa Maria Maior) or Pedro Costa (Campo de Ourique). Sérgio Cintra, the current president of the municipality who has decided not to run for leadership again, is also on the lists, in a series of names that, in a symbolic position, close with the Minister of the Presidency, Mariana Vieira da Silva.
Despite the resignation of Marta Temido at the end of August, the transmission of the testimony of the Ministry of Health did not take place until September 10, with the inauguration of the new minister, Manuel Pizarro. At the end of the ceremony in Belém, Temido announced that she would take the place of deputy in the Assembly of the Republic (she headed the list for Coimbra in the last parliamentary elections) and made it clear that she would be in the political life: “Politics is not necessarily an exercise that can only be done on stage or in the exhibition, it’s an exercise in citizenship and I don’t believe anyone who says it’s not political. And I have politics in me, because that means public choices.” In August 2021, when she received her militant card on the podium of the 23rd PS Congress, effusively applauded by the socialists for controlling the pandemic, Marta Temido even appeared in the fate of possible successors to António Costa – even if this scenario was not recognized by the socialists, given the clear absence of a partisan course by Temido, the now ex-health minister would later say that “it is not so”, but also underlines that “the future is something that is always wide and you never know what it might bring us”.
Coins “hasn’t realized yet that he’s won the room and needs to rule”
Davide Amado, candidate for the leadership of the Municipality of Lisbon, summarizes the objectives of his candidacy as follows: “Organize and mobilize the PS, conduct a serious, responsible and serene opposition in Lisbon and prepare a proposal for the people of Lisbon” , already with the municipalities of 2025 on the horizon.
As for the criticism of Carlos Moedas, who accused the PS of not yet realizing that he lost the last local elections, Davide Amado returns: the mayor “has not yet realized that he has won the chamber and that he must rule and stop opposing the opposition”. “The school year has started and there is no school transport, freshmen no longer have access to swimming lessons, the city cleaning services – where there were occasional problems – now only work occasionally. These are examples of the bewilderment and unpreparedness of the current executive power”.
Source: DN
