The verb “uncount” is explicitly used by the chairman of the CDS-PP when speaking to DN about the strategy he is trying to develop to bring his party back to the Assembly of the Republic.
“In CDS, the strategy of reversing negative cycles with refounding processes has always resulted. It is this strategy that we are going to model,” says Nuno Melo, recalling that this happened, for example, when Manuel Monteiro succeeded Adriano Moreira in leadership (the party from Europeanist to Eurosceptic and launching the idea of a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty).
So what is at stake, according to the centrist president, is to repeat this “reconstitution process”, with a global revision of the party’s program and the adoption of new causes – “and to do so without prejudice or taboos , if even changing the acronym”, as Monteiro did when he transformed the CDS into PP (Popular Party).
At the invitation of Nuno Melo, jurists António Lobo Xavier (former centrist parliamentary leader) and Miguel Morais Leitão took over the coordination of the doctrinal review process and headed a strategic and programmatic support office of the party.
“Our mayors can be a lever for a good result in the Europeans and for us to be able to return to the Assembly of the Republic.”
The new program should be approved sometime in the second half of this year at a national CDS conference devoted exclusively to the topic. For the first half of 2024, another maximum meeting of the centrists is scheduled, this time elective – and in which the choice of the party leader for the European elections will be devoted. The CDS has one elected MEP, Nuno Melo himself, and the aim is in any case to keep this to scorea decisive step to assess whether or not the party will be represented in the Assembly of the Republic in 2026.
This Saturday, Nuno Melo will meet in Oliveira do Hospital convention the CDS “assets” that best make the party think it is still a living force in national politics: its mayors.
In total, the party has nearly 1,500 elected mayors, including six mayors. This makes the CDS the fourth largest party power in Portugal in terms of local power, behind the PS, the PSD and the CDU, and ahead of Chega, the Liberal Initiative and the Left Bloc.
The initiative will have a component of political training and another of political affirmation. Nuno Melo is clear: “Our mayors can be a lever for a good result with the Europeans and for us to be able to return to the Assembly of the Republic.”
Source: DN
