“I think the country needs a leader who is convinced and decisive and who is able to lead a new cycle of reforms to the left and open the party to society and of course to other parties on the left”PS deputy Miguel Costa Matos told DN, accepting support for the candidacy of Pedro Nuno Santos as party general secretary, but removing a climate of internal discord among the Socialists.
‘These don’t contradict each other, they just go together’declared the Secretary General of the Socialist Youth, who does not hide the fact that his preference within the PS is for a dialogue on the left.
The current PS deputy and former Minister of Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos, yesterday formalized his candidacy for the leadership of the PS, against that of the current Minister of the Interior, José Luís Carneiro, with a range of support including deputies and historical socialists , trade unionists and current government officials. Despite the announced dialogue on the left by Miguel Costa Matos, Pedro Nuno Santos chose as the main supporter of his candidacy a member of a political wing within the PS that would not be expected: the current President of the Economic and Social Council, Francisco Assis, the platform that manages relations between the government, employers and trade unions.
Perhaps that was why Pedro Nuno Santos chose to use the word “concertation” numerous times during the ceremony of his nomination for the PS leadership at the party headquarters. ‘What is at stake is not a dispute between moderation and radicalism’said the former ruler, showing what was to come, pointing to the center. It should be noted that yesterday in Largo do Rato, the current president of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities, Luísa Salgueiro, the deputies Carlos Pereira, Pedro Delgado Alves and Isabel Moreira, the minister, also expressed their support for Pedro Nuno Santos. of Education, including João Costa and the current leader of the Federation of Trade Unions for Public Administration (Fesap), José Abraão.
“I understand that the Socialist Party needs leadership ‘closer to’ a political positioning that is coherent and in line with the fundamental values of the Socialist Party, a party with a strong social democratic tendency, a reformist tendency, a party that at the same time is pragmatic and moderate and able to build bridges with all areas of the political spectrum.”, and not only on the left, former Minister of Agriculture Luís Capoulas Santos told DN, guaranteeing his support for the candidacy of José Luís Carneiro. However, he emphasizes that “one of the two candidates” are “good friends and people he” values and respects. However, Capoulas Santos recalls that “even during the period of the so-called apparatus, the PS never lost its strategic autonomy and its pro-European, pro-Atlantic centrist position.” “It is this line that I believe must be continued, and if there are the best conditions to guarantee its continuation, in my opinion it is José Luís Carneiro,” he concludes.
Source: DN
