Former infrastructure minister Pedro Nuno Santos gained a clear advantage in choosing the PS’s ninth general secretary on the first day of internal elections, according to unofficial data confirmed by the candidates.
Pedro Nuno Santos received 64.1% of the votes, while Interior Minister José Luís Carneiro received 34.8% and national leader Daniel Adrião only 1%.
This Saturday there will be a vote in the federations that have the most members that can elect António Costa’s successor, namely the two largest (Porto and Braga), but Pedro Nuno Santos confirmed his favoritism by taking advantage of victories in the urban area of Lisbon. Federation, with 67%, third in number of activists, and in “his” Aveiro Federation, with 75% of the votes. So far it has elected 284 delegates to the congress taking place in Lisbon on January 5, 6 and 7, compared to 107 delegates from its main rival in the leadership dispute and none from Daniel Adrião.
For José Luís Carneiro, who hopes for the nine federations that will vote this Saturday – he himself will only vote this afternoon, in Baião (Porto) -, especially since they represent 63% of the voting population, there were victories on Friday in the federations of the Oeste and Vila Real, and above-average results in Bragança (where he had the leader, Berta Nunes), in Leiria, Guarda and Castelo Branco.
On the first day of the internal elections, in which only 76% of the activists who were able to vote voted, Pedro Nuno Santos recorded victories in Aveiro, Bragança, Castelo Branco, Évora, Federation of the Urban Area of Lisbon, Leiria, Guarda , Portalegre, Setubal and Viana do Castelo.
Today, elections will take place in the federations of Algarve, Baixo Alentejo, Braga, Coimbra, Porto, Santarém, Viseu, Azores and Madeira, which will also decide the rest of the delegates to the congress. When the polls close, the official voting will begin and the new PS leader is expected to be announced around 11:30 PM.
Source: DN
