Two years after the last change, and after an election result that leaves the party with only one seat in parliament, the PAN elects the new National Political Commission (CPN) this Saturday and with it the new spokesperson for the party. From 8:30 am, the PAN delegates (all elected from lists of regional and district assemblies) will meet in Escola Básica de Matosinhos – unlike the other congresses, this year’s meeting will only last one day. According to a party source to DN, there will be a total of 136 deputies.
The leadership choice will be made between two candidates: Inês Sousa Real, sole deputy and current PAN spokesman, or Nélson Silva, former deputy (between 2021 and 2022) and critic of the current leadership. Under the current statutes, the vote will be held in secret. Whoever tops the list with the most votes is then elected spokesperson for the next two years. However, the CPN will have members from both lists, as the statutes require that this body be filled in proportion to the votes obtained.
The focus will also be on three proposed statute changes, as the Constitutional Court (TC) rejected the proposed law changes in February last year. At the last congress (in 2021, which elected Inês Sousa Real leader) amendments to the statutes had been proposed, which would allow the board to suspend members “to preserve the good name” of the PAN – something the TC failed to do. 15 sectoral motions will also be discussed. It is also intended to set the party’s political course for the next two years.
The IX PAN Congress comes after the party lost the parliamentary group it had in last year’s legislature. As a result, only Inês Sousa Real remained in parliament (the party elected four deputies in 2019, but Cristina Rodrigues left in the middle of the legislature, leaving only three). It is break in the election results January 2022, combined with complaints about “lack of internal democracy”caused six members of the Political Committee (including now-candidate Nélson Silva) to leave their positions.
Despite the internal turmoil and criticism of the leadership, Inês Sousa Real, in an interview with DN in April, preferred to view the existence of criticism with the opposite view: “I think there is more than one faction or one list is running because a congress is also a sign of internal democracy in the parties.” According to the spokesman “the PAN has not only been a pluralistic party, but also a democratic one, and there has been more openness to the diversity of ideas within” the party. “I don’t see myself in these arguments,” he concluded.
Also on DN, the opposition candidate, Nélson Silva, criticized the leadership of Inês Sousa Real. In addition to the election result – which he viewed as “a very big setback”, a result of the failure to “pass on the message from the PAN” – the former deputy listed some of the internal problems that motivated his candidacy: “In addition to the results of the legislature, we have the internal problems: the lack of internal democracy and a great lack of basic structure, which was amputated by this direction in this year and a half, right after the elections.”
Looking to the near future, Inês Sousa Real pointed to the presentation of “very concrete proposals in the environmental field, also because of the issue of energy production and solidarity for all, from the point of view of combating energy poverty” as a priority. Further, the PAN spokeswoman tells DN that the party is also “very focused on amending the Penal Code, to make sure that the animals get stronger and that there is this expansion of animal protection in relation to the evolution that needs to happen are, and not just for companion animals”. The strategy motion that precedes it – entitled “For the causes that unite us” – is based on the desire to make PAN “the leading environmentalist party in Portugal”, which “does not stray from its political origins, animal protection as a priority axis ” . The intention is also to join the European Greens, the political party of the European Parliament.
Nélson Silva – after speaking of the lack of a “concrete political strategy” – defined as a priority to make proposals “in line with the animal case, fiscal justice or even on a financial level”. example of this is the unconditional basic income, which according to Nélson Silva can be applied “in several phases”.. The strategy motion at the head (“More PAN, Act to Renew”) defines the need to position the party as “demanding to the government, namely in the negotiations of the state budget and in the use of political control tools” as a priority. “.
Source: DN
