Marques Mendes admitted on SIC on Sunday evening that he could be a presidential candidate and the only effect this had was the revelation by André Ventura that Chega will have his own candidate in these circumstances. Within the PSD, there were some reactions all essentially saying that Mendes’ announcement isn’t surprising.
Speaking to Renascença, Pedro Santana Lopes — former leader and (still) former PSD militant — joked that Mendes’ pre-presidential candidacy is “like hake — before it was gone.” “It was something we already expected, we all expected, those Sunday attempts at a recipe that is already known: proposing books, sending greetings to the whole country and to the whole world, with all due respect, even to the winners of the pétanque tournament, there in a more remote place in the country,” he also said, also defending the statement that Mendes only came forward now because he himself, Santana Lopes, had already launched that card (” I stirred the waters a week ago, because I said something similar on SIC, and a week later, a few days later, this announcement came from commentator Luís Marques Mendes”).
Speaking to DN, Miguel Relvas – former number 2 of the PSD under Pedro Passos Coelho’s leadership – also said he was not surprised. “It is no surprise that Luís Marques Mendes is available to serve the country.”
However, he felt he was doing it “too early,” maybe too early: “We’re not even in the primaries yet, we’re in the pre-primaries.” According to Relvas, the scenario of the presidential candidates will not be completely clear until the end of the summer of 2025 (the elections are in January 2026). That means there are still about two years to go. So it could be a tactical mistake to say it’s early and make a diagnosis so far in advance.
Mendes seems to have chosen his own timing in function of the PSD Summer University (see news opposite), which started yesterday in Castelo de Vide. The program features interventions by two alleged right-wing presidential candidates, Paulo Portas and Durão Barroso. With his advance, Mendes will try to condition the questions that journalists will ask the two in Castelo de Vide.
Yesterday, the Secretary General of the PSD, Hugo Soares, upon arrival at the hotel where the initiative takes place, avoided the topic: “What I want to bring to the news are these 100 young people who are here to share with many people of great quality , from the best of the best in the country, their concerns, their reflections, but above all learn from them.
“We want to have a candidacy that prevents Marques Mendes from reaching the second round and that prevents Marques Mendes or Santos Silva from becoming president of the republic.”
The person who responded most substantively was André Ventura. Considering that Mendes and Augusto Santos Silva (pre-candidate for Belém by the PS) are two “enemies” of Chega, he said: “I would like to say without any doubt, without second rounds and without irrevocable: if this is the scenario Na the presidential election, Chega will again have a presidential candidate and we will try to break the dominance of these two personalities.” become a republic.”
Source: DN
