Less than a year after receiving the vote of 44% of the members of the Liberal Initiative in the convention that decided the succession of João Cotrim Figueiredo, Carla Castro announced that she will not join the party’s lists of deputies for the parliamentary elections on March 10. 2024. These will be made official today during a National Council taking place in Leiria.
After finishing second for Lisbon in 2022, behind only then-leader Cotrim Figueiredo, Carla Castro saw the relegation – she was told she would be seventh on the list, and could move up to fifth – confirming the gradual departure the rest of the competition. the parliamentary group since he contested the leadership with Rui Rocha, in a dispute that left open wounds. One by one, several people close to the deputy would withdraw, from her vice-presidential nominee Paulo Carmona to former colleagues on the Executive Committee, such as Vicente Ferreira da Silva. And the same happened to several dozen members of the conservative wing, who in some cases joined Chega.
Carla Castro’s path should have been very different. For the time being, the deputy who was part of the cabinet of Cotrim Figueiredo when he was the only deputy, guarantees that a cycle has been closed: “in the near future I will reconsider my role in active political life”. And he also declared that he is and will remain “liberal, reformist and a practitioner of constructive unrest.”
It is still unclear whether the country will be willing to listen to the approach of other parties, namely in a coalition led by the PSD that includes other independent forces in addition to the CDS-PP.
Mariana Leitão in Lisbon, Rui Rocha is in Braga
The departure of Carla Castro, who received an invitation from the Vice President of IL, Ricardo Pais de Oliveira, without knowing who the other candidates for Lisbon would be and what the general lines of the program would be, coincided with her entry in an eligible position in the main electoral constituency by Mariana Leitão, current chief of staff of the parliamentary group and municipal councilor in Oeiras, who will be the second on a list led by Bernardo Blanco, who stood out in the commission of inquiry into the political supervision of the management of TAP. And it will also integrate the independent Graça Canto Moniz
Rui Rocha also announced during a dinner meeting in Setúbal that he will remain the head of the list for Braga and Joana Cordeiro will return for Setúbal, these two circles where IL did not elect a deputy until 2022. Cotrim Figueiredo, who will head the list of liberals in the Europeans, will have the almost impossible task of getting himself elected by the European circle. Another unknown that remained was the fate of Carlos Guimarães Pinto, who would be head of the European Union in 2022. from the list for Porto. She will maintain that position, just as Patrícia Gilvaz will remain second on the list.
In an online vote that took place in recent days, published in internal IL groups and withdrawn this Friday, with 25 possible alternates, Guimarães Pinto was the featured leader among the 250 participants, ahead of Carla Castro, Bernardo Blanco and Rui Rocha. .
Source: DN
