The Lisbon PS council is going to elections on July 7 and Marta Temido – who is currently the interim president of this structure – will be a candidate for leadership. It is another move by the former health minister in the local structures of the socialists in the capital, where she is gaining weight as a potential candidate for the 2025 municipal elections.
The date of the elections was approved last Tuesday by the secretariat of the Federation of the Lisbon Urban Area (FAUL) of the PS. By statute, the resignation of the previous council leader, Davide Amado, did not oblige elections to be held, but Marta Temido did not want to assume permanent leadership of the council without the legitimacy of an election act. With the planned elections, PS Lisboa does not expect a competitive candidacy.
With a mandate of two years, the next municipal directorate will be responsible for the autarkic process in the capital. And while the choice of the candidate for Lisbon is a prerogative of the party leadership – the same goes for the Secretary-General, António Costa – the local structures do not cease to have a say.
Marta Temido has been interim president of the Lisbon City Council since February this year. when Davide Amado tendered his resignation after it was reported that he was accused by the Public Prosecution Service of economic participation in business and abuse of power. The also president of the parish council of Alcântara left “without any admission of guilt”, to prevent the situation from “turning into an attack on the PS”. Subsequently, Temido – who was number two on Davide Amado’s list – took over the leadership of the structure and, according to socialist sources to DN, Since then it has been very active, both in the municipality itself and in matters more related to the autarchy.. Tasks in which she has been “deeply committed” and performed “notoriously with verve”, a PS Lisboa member tells DN, not without underlining that “it is still early days and much remains to be defined”.
There is a general voice in the PS that it is premature to define the names of candidates for the next municipal elections and that advancing too early would be trumps for the current mayor of the municipality, the social democrat Carlos Moedas. The socialists of the capital want to first put forward a list of priority themes and proposals for the city and only then choose the name that will give face to the candidacy. But, still at the beginning of the path, Marta Temido is starting to emerge as the strongest hypothesis to challenge Moedas in 2025.
In favor of the now deputy is the fact that she is a national figure, who rose to prominence as health minister during the pandemic years, and is recognized for her political ability to reach the top chamber of the country. But if these are trump cards handed to Temido in municipal elections, there is a way to go along with the socialist party apparatus. Moreover, as a recent militant, the former minister received her socialist card two years ago, on the stage of the Congress of Portimão, from the Prime Minister and leader of the PS.
There is one more fact that argues in favor of Marta Temido. One of the most talked about names among socialists in Lisbon is that of Duarte Cordeiro, the current minister of the environment, leader of FAUL, and vice president of the municipality under Fernando Medina. A name that, going forward, would have the blessing of the party structures – but at the moment this is going to be a scenario considered very unlikely by the socialists in the capital, and that will not be in the minister’s equations.
Source: DN
