Involves ‘winning local elections’ next year; fielding broad presidential candidate
Prime Minister Luís Montenegro goes into the 42nd PSD Congress tomorrow in Braga a confident man: he has the State Budget in the bag (thanks to Pedro Nuno Santos’ decision to abstain from the vote), and he has a ‘global strategy motion’ that focuses on the next two years. He means to win the local elections (coming in October next year), and field a ‘broad presidential candidate’
Dubbed “Acreditar em Portugal” (Believing in Portugal – the same slogan that Montenegro used to win the elections), he tells his party: “We have set ourselves the goal of putting the PSD back at the head of the National Association of Municipalities (ANMP) and the National Association of Parishes (ANAFRE)“.
Regarding the presidential elections (January 2026), his text recalls that this is “a one-man election (sic), where candidacies arise from the individual will of the personalities who propose to fulfil the role of President of the Republic”.
“In the case of the PSD, we will follow the tradition of awaiting the possible availability of party militants with the personal and political aptitude and qualifications for the position”.
PSD’s ranks include “militants with notoriety and in-depth and transversal knowledge of the country, public policies, democratic and civic institutions, international geopolitical reality, our participation in the United Nations Organisation, the European Union, NATO, the CPLP and all the international platforms in which we intervene. Personalities who are impartial and competent to fulfil the responsibilities that the Constitution of the Republic assigns to the nation’s highest magistrate.”
Even so, the option supported by the PSD will be “necessarily comprehensive and worthy of the trust of voters from other political areas or without a predefined political identity”, says the motion.
There are still no declared candidates to succeed Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. Former PSD leader and television commentator Luís Marques Mendes is a potential front runner, considered to tick all the PSD boxes
In a recent television interview, Montenegro acknowledged Marques Mendes is one of the potential candidates who “best fits” the profile he has drawn up, although he stressed he is not the only one.
The motion goes on to talk about various other measures and ambitions, concluding that the PSD has “recreated itself as the largest Portuguese party”.
The congress tomorrow is understood to have 12 major proposals to discuss, including a greater focus on decentralisation, the implementation of the four-day week, and calls for a review of the electoral system.
Source material: LUSA
