The Left Bloc National Council yesterday announced the choices of candidates for deputies in almost all eligible seats in the next parliamentary elections, confirming its commitment to the return of former members of the parliamentary group. Even the main novelty of the party in São Bento will be the experienced MEP (and two-time presidential candidate) Marisa Matias, who will occupy the place at the head of the list for Porto, which in 2022 belonged to former coordinator Catarina Martins.
“We know that we will get a good result and that we will have a strengthening of the parliamentary group, more female deputies, more deputies, to make a difference,” said current coordinator Mariana Mortágua at a press conference at the end of the month. National Council Meeting. Mortágua will again top the list for Lisbon, with bloc leader Fabian Figueiredo (who took up the mandate on a replacement basis in the previous legislature) in second place and experienced former deputy Jorge Costa in third.
Although the Left Bloc was reduced to five deputies in 2022 and only two were elected for Lisbon, the expectations of those responsible for the party point to an increase in the number of votes, allowing the election of the independent Anabela Rodrigues, activist for the rights of immigrants, becomes feasible. and by researcher and feminist Leonor Rosas, who rank fourth and fifth on Lisbon’s list. Out is the current parliamentary leader Pedro Filipe Soares, who had already said goodbye to São Bento.
In Porto, behind Marisa Matias, the bloc deputies José Soeiro and Isabel Pires appear, just as Joana Mortágua remains at the head of the list for Setúbal, with Daniel Bernardino, coordinator of the Autoeuropa Workers’ Commission, in second place, looking towards a reinforcement vote that allows access to the Assembly of the Republic.
In Aveiro, where the bloc has not elected a deputy in 2022, the two elected in the previous term reappear, with Moisés Ferreira in first place and Nélson Peralta in second.
Among the “reliable people who can do what counts”, as Mariana Mortágua called the bloc candidates, there is also the historian Miguel Cardina, who will try to regain the mandate that the party had over several terms in Coimbra – with José Manuel Purity vice President of the Assembly of the Republic – and GP Rafael Henriques, head of the list for Leiria. And second on the list for Faro, which is once again led by José Gusmão, is the independent Guadalupe Simões, former leader of the Portuguese Nurses Union.
The first names on the lists were revealed in nine circles on the continent (in addition to the rest: Inês Antunes advances via Castelo Branco and Adriana Temporão via Viana do Castelo), in the two autonomous regions (Joana Bettencourt for the Azores and Dina Letra for Madeira) and in the emigration circles (Rita Nóbrega for Europe and Miguel Heleno for Outside Europe) there are theoretically few seats left in the legislature. These are the cases of Braga and Santarém, in which the party preferred until 2022.
Source: DN
