The interview, by SIC, conducted by journalist Dulce Salzedas, was planned with an opportunity criterion: the three years since the start of the covid-19 pandemic. Then Health Minister Marta Temido agreed – in what was her first interview since she left government (September 2022). But the conversation went well beyond the topic of covid.
Marta Temido, now a deputy in the Assembly of the Republic and chair of the Lisbon political committee for the PS, was asked about the possibility – much discussed within the PS – of becoming the party’s candidate for the Lisbon Chamber in the next municipal elections (September/October 2025). And in practice, it did not exclude this possibility.
Initially, she assured: “I’m not a candidate for anything.” “That would require a personal strategic thinking that I don’t have,” he justified, also saying that “it’s early, even too early” to talk about local authorities. But later, faced with another question – “would you think it normal that the mayor of the municipality could be a candidate for the chamber?” – would answer: “As far as I know it is a circumstance that can occur”. But – I would add one more time – “the purpose [de liderar atualmente a concelhia de Lisboa] this isn’t it”.
“A Mercy, A Disgrace”
For now, the PS is focused on being the opposition in Lisbon to the management led by Carlos Moedas [PSD) na Câmara Municipal . As “preocupações que vale a pena ter” e para as quais os socialistas procuram “respostas” são com os problemas da habitação (“essa chaga”), da mobilidade (“essa dificuldade com tantos efeitos ambientais”) e ainda relacionadas com uma cidade que é “cada vez mais desigual”, socialmente falando.
Dito de outra forma: a prioridade para já, mais do que a definição de candidatos, passa por questões programáticas. Marta Temido não quer admitir nem excluir uma candidatura sua à maior autarquia do país.
O que verdadeiramente exclui, isso sim, é aquilo que em tempos até António Costa sugeriu (quando lhe entregou o cartão de militante do PS): abalançar-se para uma candidatura à liderança do partido. Sorrindo, comentou a sugestão de Costa com um trocadilho: “Foi uma graça [e seria] a disgrace.” He also said that he continues to feel “great respect and admiration” for António Costa.
He does not comment on the situation in the health sector. “For personal preservation, and for the political process itself, I have decided not to comment on health. Everything is going as smoothly as possible.”
Source: DN
