The PS government is divided over the next PS leader. There are people who support Pedro Nuno Santos, there are people who support José Luís Carneiro and there are people who do not support anyone, because they do not want to or because they do not have to (ministers without party ties). The accounting done so far shows that the candidate with the most support is former minister Pedro Nuno Santos. And as for the other candidate, José Luís Carneiro – who is still minister of the Interior – only one other colleague of his from the Council of Ministers has expressed his support, Fernando Medina.
In other words: within the ministerial list, the former minister (Pedro Nuno) has many more votes than the current minister (Carneiro). Of the eleven members of the Council of Ministers (including António Costa) who are PS activists and therefore potentially entitled to vote in the party’s internal elections taking place on December 15 and 16, four can now be clearly identified as supporters. by Pedro Nuno Santos: Manuel Pizarro (health), Duarte Cordeiro (environment), Marina Gonçalves (housing) and João Costa (education). Five did not speak (Costa, Mariana Vieira da Silva, Ana Catarina Mendes, Ana Mendes Godinho and Maria do Céu Antunes) and only two are from “team Carneiro”: the candidate himself and Medina. The other seven ministers are not PS activists – they are therefore exempt from the need to speak out.
The great unknown
In fact, the great mystery lies in the group that forms the so-called ‘hard core’ closest to the Prime Minister.
António Costa has said from the start that he will never comment on who his favorite candidate is, as he will remain in the leadership of the party until he is replaced.
But this duty of equality is not imposed on the other members of the so-called ‘hard core’. This consists of the Ministers Mariana Vieira da Silva (Presidency) and Ana Catarina Mendes (Parliamentary Affairs), the Ministers of Finance (Fernando Medina) and Culture (Pedro Adão e Silva) as well as the Deputy Secretary of State to the Prime Minister, António Mendonça Mendes , brother of Ana Catarina Mendes.
In this small collective that most assists Costa in the daily coordination of governance, as we have already seen, the only one who has already spoken out (in favor of Carneiro) was the Minister of Finance, Fernando Medina.
The rest are silent – and it is true that Pedro Adão e Silva, as a former PS activist, does not have to, and it even seems that he is preparing to return to university teaching at the ISCTE.
So there are three mysteries: Mariana Vieira da Silva and the Mendes brothers (Ana Catarina and António Mendonça).
Within the PS sources DN has heard, no one is making predictions – and they are not opening the game themselves.
Ideologically, Mariana Vieira da Silva could be closer to Pedro Nuno Santos. But the priority, she says, is likely to be tackling governance and ultimately preparing a return to professional life (she graduated in sociology from ISCTE and was a researcher there). Moreover, it has no weight in the party apparatus – something it has never wanted to achieve.
The case of the Mendes brothers is different. For the time being, they have always moved like a log. And then they have weight in the party apparatus, through the Setúbal district, one of the party’s four main districts (the others being Lisbon, Porto and Braga). António Mendonça Mendes heads the party federation. And Ana Catarina Mendes was the head of list for the district in the last parliamentary elections (and in previous parliamentary elections).
What will cause them to fall one way or another is unknown. It is known that Ana Catarina Mendes has been mentioned several times as the likely head of the PS list at the next European elections (May/June 2024). How much this affects your current options remains to be seen.
The other unknowns are Ana Mendes Godinho (Work and Social Security) and Maria do Céu Antunes (Agriculture). The internal ‘networks’ of both within the PS indicate that they may be closer to José Luís Carneiro than to Pedro Nuno Santos. But neither one nor the other opened the match.
Adrião continues again
Yesterday, Socialist leader Daniel Adrião told Lusa that he will run again for the post of PS Secretary General, claiming that his internal sensibility is not reflected in any of the candidates already on the ground. “This time I did not want to run for the position of Secretary General of the PS and I have been waiting until today for a candidacy that would mark a turning point in the party. But that didn’t happen and only two continuity candidates appeared for a new candidate. political cycle,” he declared.
Adrião has been at the head of a minority group within the PS for some time and has already put himself forward as a candidate for party leadership. It has a 12% representation in the National Commission (CN) of the PS (maximum body between congresses) and 15% in the National Political Commission (a slightly more limited internal “parliament”).
In his statements to Lusa, he also referred to the causes of António Costa’s resignation, which led to the decision of the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, to call early parliamentary elections on March 10. “I have been warning all these years about bad practices that culminated in the situation we are currently in. If only they had listened to me…,” he noted. In addition to defending a deep reform of the electoral system, Adrião advocates a separation between the functions of secretary general of the PS and those of prime minister-designate.
Today the PS National Committee meets. The congress that will inaugurate the new leader was scheduled for January 6 and 7.
Source: DN
