What motivated your candidacy for IL leadership? Don’t you see yourself in the other two candidacies?
I have been a member of the National Council for three years, defending a different party than the one we were building. I don’t see myself in either candidacies and I had many members around me who said they would vote blank for the same reason. So there was a spot here. Another reason is that we are going through a process of inevitability in a party that is liberal, where everything is given and guaranteed. Now a liberal party is a living party, in which people debate, if they come forward, I see a party that one day has five or six candidates. Our references should be the good liberal practices of Northern Europe, which we should bring to IL and then to the country.
And what does this practice consist of?
I don’t want to make anyone’s stick party, nor did we end up equal, otherwise I’d rather go home and vote for the PSD. Or we managed to do something different to be the 3rd party, and not from a voting perspective, but rooted, present, with power and decision-making capacity and this is done through political practice, which is different.
In other words, are Rui Rocha and Carla Castro two sides of the same coin or party line?
It’s what I think. I haven’t seen them vote against each other in the National Council for three years. In that period, none of them planned a single voting point, never presented a single alternative document, while I made about 200 or 300 interventions, I planned five or six or seven points, I presented an infinite number of alternative documents. That’s why I don’t feel represented by this passivity and almost calculation. It is also important to build the party as a political project. It needs to be worked beyond Parliament, because it needs to be built in the country and reach the citizens. This can only be achieved if there is a full-time president who is exclusively dedicated. I don’t think it’s for the role of deputy.
So if you get elected, you won’t be at the top of the list anywhere?
The parliamentary elections are only four years away. The IL must be able to rule. These four years are the unique opportunity to build a party in all its facets, in knowledge, in praxis, in human capital. Almost 90% of IL members have never been in politics, this makes a big difference both positively and negatively. On the positive side because it is fresh blood, fresh ideas, people full of motivation, with a lot of technical capacity because they have gone through companies, many have lived abroad, etc. But they also have a lot of political illiteracy, they have to learn to share participate in meetings and chambers of municipalities, parliaments, etc. This training is the work for the next four years.
“We have many cadres within the IL. Where is our ability to move this human capital and make it worthwhile for the party? Zero so far.”
What core ideas are you highlighting from your Strategy Motion?
I fought a lot in IL for different things, including decentralization, that is, a party that defends decentralization for the country must be decentralized. Another is about sharing the know how policy and involve society in its development know how. Again in the past three years the number of proposals in this regard… Carla Castro was in charge of the IL study center and for three years she did not present a report of her activity, a document for archiving that I could consult, and therefore how should I believe that these people are able to build a liberal party in an almost technical sense, decentralized, open to all, other than the PS and PSD, if they did nothing for three years. It is not enough for all of us to defend freedom of choice in health. The party is also very attached to the economy and could not allow it to become ghetto-like in terms such as the left-right bloc, the cupcakes, the rich kids from Lapa who want tax breaks. Liberalism is of the people, if we go back to history and liberal countries, we have as reference the empowerment of the people. There are other flags to work with. I give the example of Justice. How many companies fail in court? If the idea is that of liberalism and the maximum freedom of the individual, Justice today functions as a serious attack on people’s individual freedom.
Is the fact that you are known within the party, but almost nothing outside it, a handicap for your candidacy?
Carlos Guimarães Pinto was also completely unknown and João Cotrim Figueiredo eventually became known here in a more business area of the state, but he was also completely unknown among the Portuguese people in general.
Has the image been built up?
It builds. I’m much more concerned with building a party. I don’t like presidentialism at all. Leaders are of two types: either they drown out everything around them in order to stand out; or they pull everyone else forward and believe that by doing so they will be greater than everything around them. I clearly enjoy moving people forward and giving them relevance. The IL, in what is called human capital, has not been able to take advantage of the enormous human capital present in the party. The group of people gathered there is impressive and extraordinary. We have many frameworks within IL. Where is our ability to move this human capital and make it worthwhile for the party? Zero so far.
He defended that the president of IL should exit the internal elections with an absolute majority.
I defend the second round, which exists in the PS and PSD, because no one wants a legitimate Executive Committee chairman with 30 percent of the vote. That always sucks. Because if not, it can end up in successive crises and it is a bull’s-eye. IL always says it’s a party of ideas, so we won’t become a party of calculating people.
Source: DN
