The parliamentary leader of the BE, Pedro Filipe Soares, opined on Tuesday that the party has “an unequivocal maturity” and therefore “will not be orphaned by any leadership”, ruling out the possibility of presenting itself as a candidate to replace Catarina Martins to follow.
Speaking to Lusa news agency after Catarina Martins announced she would step down as BE’s leader at the national convention in May, Pedro Filipe Soares thanked the silent leader “for the whole period he has been in coordination and for the capabilities he has shown throughout that period, both internally and externally, and for the changes he has helped build in the country”.
“The Bloco de Esquerda currently has a maturity that is unequivocal and therefore it will not be an orphan of any leadership at this time, it has a political line that is up for discussion before the next convention, it has the capacity to guarantee that about the next few times it will make a difference in the Portuguese left, in people’s lives and that is an absolute certainty”insured.
Asked about the possibility of running for leadership of the party – in 2014 contesting a very divided convention – Pedro Filipe Soares assured not, and that this hypothesis is completely ruled out.
“The Bloco de Esquerda is a multi-party. It has a richness in that plurality that is amplified in debate and then also shown in its power of public expression with policies that have responded to many of the difficulties in people’s lives “defended.
After confronting “the different opinions”, the group leader of the BE has the option of leaving this magna meeting “as a political synthesis that can make a difference”. “And I believe this is the greatest assurance that the party will give the country, as we are not afraid of democracy outside the party or within the party. We are democrats, we believe that democracy always leads to the best decisions”he stressed.
When asked who could succeed Catarina Martins in the succession, at a time when various media points to Mariana Mortágua as the most valid hypothesis, Pedro Filipe Soares said that the party’s orientation motions are being finalized.
“They will be delivered by the end of the month. This is the calendar we will also use to express this aspect of information”he said.
Catarina Martins announced today that she will be leaving the BE leadership at the National Convention in May. She refuses to name names for her succession, but makes it clear that she made this decision calmly, knowing that there are people in the party who are willing to do so.
At this morning’s press conference, Catarina Martins declared that the decade in which she headed the BE was one of “victories and defeats”, explaining that “what has now changed” was “the instability of the absolute majority”. that the crisis “multiplying within the government and colliding with the popular struggle is the sign of the end of a political cycle”.
“In the block there are not very long periods of functions such as coordination. What made me decide at this point was to think that the bloc should now begin preparing for the political change that is already here.he claimed.
Catarina Martins has been at the forefront of the party’s destiny since November 2012, then in partnership with João Semedo, when they were elected coordinators of the Bloco de Esquerda, then in an unprecedented “two-headed” leadership, a model that emerged two years later was abandoned, at the next National Convention, in 2014.
That year, the party was led by six coordinators: Pedro Soares, Pedro Filipe Soares, Joana Mortágua, Adelino Fortunato, Nuno Moniz and Catarina Martins, who was BE spokesperson at the time.
At the party’s main meeting in 2016, the position of spokesperson ceased to exist and the position of national coordinator was resumed, a position taken by Catarina Martins. At the XI National Convention, in November 2018, the list of continuity and without major changes of Catarina Martins, Pedro Filipe Soares and Marisa Matias was comfortably elected, winning 70 of the 80 seats in the National Council.
At the party’s last major meeting, in May 2021, the list of the current leadership won 54 of the 80 seats in the National Bureau of the BE, which became more divided, a loss of 16 mandates compared to 2018.
Source: DN
