Friday sees militants embark on the voting process which lasts till Saturday
Between tomorrow and Saturday, around 60,000 socialist ‘militants’ will choose António Costa’s successor as secretary-general of the PS Socialist party.
These internal elections – opened following Mr Costa’s resignation on the fall of the government early last month – are being contested by José Luís Carneiro, Pedro Nuno Santos and Daniel Adrião (the latter not being seen as a likely winner).
In addition to the party leader – the man who will take PS Socialists into legislative elections scheduled for March 10 – militants will elect 1,400 delegates (plus 1,100 with inherent rights) to the national congress, which will be held between January 5 and 7.
According to data provided by the Congress Organising Committee (COC), the PS party has a total of around 80,000 members, but only 60,000 had paid their dues by December 1 and therefore are in a position to vote this weekend.
This effectively means the electoral universe has been reduced by 20,000.
The Lisbon Urban Area Federation (FAUL) remains the third largest structure at national level with 7,170 voters, behind Porto with around 11,000 and Braga with 7,800, says Lusa.
On Friday, FAUL members and those from the federations of Aveiro, Bragança, Castelo Branco, Évora, Guarda, Leiria, Portalegre, Oeste, Setúbal, Viana do Castelo and Vila Real will vote.
On Saturday, it is the turn of militants in federations in the Algarve, Baixo Alentejo, Braga, Coimbra, Porto, Santarém, Viseu, Azores and Madeira.
Voting ends at 23:00 on Saturday, and the winner is expected to be announced shortly afterwards.
This will be an avidly watched process, for the simple reason that the party’s choice will be crucial in terms of national voters’ perceptions: Pedro Nuno Santos has always been touted as the ‘favourite’ to succeed Mr Costa, but he is also seen as the most ‘radical’ left-leaning candidate. José Luís Carneiro, while a comparative ‘outsider’, is much more viewed as a ‘safe pair of hands’, a centre-Left option, and far from radical. Pundits suggest that PSD social democrats (the traditional alternative to Socialism in Portugal) would much prefer to fight elections with Pedro Nuno Santos at the helm, as they believe this would send a lot of voters their way.
Source: LUSA
