Chega president André Ventura promised on Monday that the party will have its own candidate in the 2026 presidential election if the options are Luís Marques Mendes and Augusto Santos Silva, deeming this a “legitimate defense”.
In a conversation with journalists, André Ventura, at the end of an initiative on housing problems and the homeless in Lisbon, wanted to comment on the possibility that allowed Marques Mendes on Sunday evening to run for president of the republic.
With this progress made by the former leader of the PSD, the president of Chega considered that there is a possibility of running for president in 2026 by two “declared enemies of Chega”: the president of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva. , on the left, and former PSD leader Luís Marques Mendes, on the right.
“I wanted to say without a doubt, without second rounds and without irrevocable votes: If this is the presidential election scenario, Chega will again have a presidential candidate and we will try to break the dominance of these two personalities, who are not good. for democracy and for Portugal,” he said.
Ventura did not want to confirm whether he could be a candidate himself, as happened in 2021 — “it could be or it couldn’t be” — and left open the possibility that Chega would support a candidate from a different right-wing party, depending on who it was, saying only “respect” for Paulo Portas, but doubts whether the former CDS-PP leader will ascend to Belém.
“With these two candidates, I know what they say and think about Chega, and the problems they could cause, namely for Chega’s participation in a constitutional government,” he insisted, noting that both Santos Silva and Marques Mendes were “by far the” There are worse presidents than the current head of state, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
When asked whether a fragmentation to the right could not benefit the presidential candidate from the left, André Ventura said he was convinced that the election would be highly contested and with a second round.
“Voters on the right will have to choose whether they prefer Chega’s candidate or Luís Marques Mendes (…) Our fight is on the right, and we want to have a candidacy that prevents Luís Marques Mendes from reaching second place . round and that prevents Marques Mendes or Santos Silva from becoming president of the republic,” he stressed.
In his television commentary on SIC, former PSD president Luís Marques Mendes admitted a presidential candidacy on Sunday evening “if there is any benefit to the country” and “a minimum of conditions to move forward”, rejecting any decision at this time or any agreement with the Social Democratic leader, Luís Montenegro.
“If one day I think that with a candidacy for the presidency of the Republic I can be useful to the country – that is what counts – if I see that my candidacy and a minimum of conditions for its realization are of any use. I am fair and I will make that decision regardless of whether or not there is an agreement,” he said.
The former parliament speaker emphasized that it is “a free, personal and individual decision”.
“I insist: if there is a benefit to the country and there are minimum conditions, if these requirements are not met, there will be no decision and everything will be fine,” Mendes said, noting that “it is a very tough decision is,” and stressed that “an eternity” is missing for the January 2026 presidential election.
Source: DN
