Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke in English at the closing session of a seminar on women in diplomacy and globalization, at the Institute of Political Studies of the Catholic University of Portugal, in Lisbon, in a speech saying that there is still a lot of misogyny in Portugal .
“In almost 49 years of democracy in Portugal, we have never had a female president,” he stressed.
Then, referring to the diplomat Ana Gomes, who was in the audience, and to the 2026 presidential election, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa added: “We had a candidate there and who knows if she will be the next president of the Portuguese Republic. Who knows, in two years and ten months.”
“It’s something we all hope will change soon,” he said.
In this regard, the president of the republic said that Portugal was “one of the few European countries with queens, this was very rare in Europe, and some of them were really exceptional”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa emphasized that since April 25, 1974, Portugal had “only one foreign minister, Teresa Gouveia, in 2003, 2004 only one”, and lamented that women make up only “about a third” of the current Portuguese diplomatic corps.
“Even more worrying, and this is last year’s bad news: the latest numbers of candidates selected for the diplomatic career show a decline in the presence of women,” he noted, wondering, “Why are there so few women selected?”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa called on students and diplomats not to be “satisfied with what has already been achieved in terms of gender equality” and chose the fight for rights and for women’s active role in Portugal as “not just a necessity for political power”. but also for civil society”.
“We in Portugal are still very, very anti-misogynistic in so many cases,” he opined, defending that there are “barriers that need to be broken” and “much still to be done” on the matter.
This seminar took place on the eve of International Women’s Day, which is celebrated on March 8.
Ana Gomes, socialist activist, former ambassador to Jakarta, ran without PS support for the 2021 presidential election, with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa being re-elected as president of the republic.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa obtained 60.67% of the votes cast in that election. Ana Gomes, who only received a salute from her party for her candidacy, came in second with 12.96%.
Source: DN
